Grace Gershuny wrote:
> USDA's attempt to provide flexibility
> for antibiotic use only "if necessary" was attacked as contradicting
> consumer expectations,
How do you think the "if necessary" idea could be implemented? I recall
that the circumstances under which "necessary" might be determined were
not specified.
It seems safe to say that every time anybody gives an antibiotic to a
cow, it has been decided that it is necessary to do so. There were and
are a whole lot of people who think that methyl bromide is "necessary"
and daily sub clinical antibiotics is necessary and anhydrous ammonia is
necessary and the roundup ready trait is necessary too. So many things
are necessary.
And it DOES contradict consumer expectations. Does that count?
> and so the purist position that penalizes farmers
> like the Amish has won the day.
Few of the Amish farms of my knowledge sell to the fluid milk market,
for reasons not related to antibiotic status. Most sell to the
cheesemakers. Sounds like they are doing the very best thing by
producing for their own local community anyway. If they were "certified
Organic" for the same product, would their own communities go begging
for milk? Would all the milk fly to the cities to be sold for $8 per
gallon?
If I had a personal choice (perish the thought) between buying milk from
a neighbor I trust and buying certified organic milk from some big
store, I'd head to the neighbor's, for many reasons. Once that
connection is severed and the trust aspect is missing, then no
exceptions are possible, because that requires that I trust someone I
don't trust, or even know.
If it is really true that antibiotics are seldom needed for a properly
managed milk cow, then the overall burden of removing from organic
production those animals which must be treated will be light, and
animals which have the lowest infection rate will be favored over those
with the highest production.
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/san/htdocs/hypermail
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 05 2000 - 20:00:32 EDT