CONDOS WHERE COWS ONCE GRAZED
Kelley, Kevin J.
Condos Where Cows Once Grazed The average dairy farmer in Vermont can expect to suffer an annual loss of more than $3,500 if Bovine Growth Hormone is introduced into the state's herds, according to...
...However, most Vermont politicians have not yet taken a stand on BGH...
...Food and Drug Administration...
...Kevin J. Kelley (Kevin J. Kelley is the editor of Toward Freedom, a bimonthly report on non-alignment and developing countries published in Burlington, Vermont...
...This is one issue where we really need to have him on our side," Pollina says...
...Condos Where Cows Once Grazed The average dairy farmer in Vermont can expect to suffer an annual loss of more than $3,500 if Bovine Growth Hormone is introduced into the state's herds, according to University of Vermont agricultural economist Rick Wackernagel...
...Public outcry recently prompted one creamery co-op to stop taking milk from a farm managed by the University of Vermont...
...The result would be new rows of condos where cows once grazed...
...An activist group called Rural Vermont has scored notable initial success in its efforts to rally opposition to the chemical...
...That estimate is based mainly on the cost of the chemical itself and the additional feed required for cows treated with the growth stimulant...
...One of four chemical giants competing to develop BGH, Monsanto refuses to let the University reveal where the milk is being shipped...
...In 1984, 3,170 herds were being milked in the state, compared to 2,400 herds today...
...Some cows in the University's herd are being injected with the hormone as part of an experiment financed by Monsanto...
...What's really at stake in the BGH struggle is nothing less than the future of Vermont...
...The anticipated drop in farmers' earnings caused by the impact of BGH on the milk supply would make the losses large enough to wipe out hundreds of the state's farms...
...Some critics have suggested that Leahy, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, may have been swayed by campaign contributions from Monsanto...
...Similar initiatives are expected in the Vermont legislature next year...
...Dairy farming, once a mainstay of the state's economy, has already declined sharply in Vermont...
...Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, for example, says only that he favors further research...
...Farm after farm has been subdivided," complained dairy farmer Jack Starr at a recent Vermont hearing on BGH...
...They're organizing to stop BGH...
...Anthony Pollina, director of Rural Vermont, vows to step up the pressure on Leahy, who is in a position to play a significant role in blocking approval of BGH by the U.S...
...Farmers like Starr are not merely wringing their hands over the threat to their way of life...
...But two of the state's most successful capitalists, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, have enlisted in the battle against BGH, labeling millions of pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream with an appeal to "save family farms" by opposing the hormone...
...In just the past year, 7 per cent of Vermont's dairy farmers have gone out of business...
...Republican Representative Peter Smith, the state's lone member of the House, has been persuaded to support legislation that would impose a three-year moratorium on commercial distribution of BGH-treated cows...
Vol. 53 • November 1989 • No. 11
