Although many consumers are concerned with the standard of living of the cows, one of the primary reasons that people buy organic milk is because they are concerned about drinking milk from cows that have been treated with hormones, specifically the growth hormone rBST. The hormone has been in use since 1993 and estimates say that about 22% of cows are regularly treated with it. Only about 3% of the milk market is covered by organic milk and, due to demand and the higher operating costs of organic farms, organic milk can cost consumers twice as much as conventional milk.
For both consumers and producers, there is a middle ground: hormone free milk. Dairies do not have to meet the standards for organic milk, which is good from a time/cost perspective, but they can charge more for the hormone-free milk than for conventional. The non-rBST milk is usually priced right between conventional and organic, so shoppers can save and still get milk they feel comfortable drinking.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-10-2006 @ 2:51PM
Michael Schmitt said...
There is no such thing as "Hormone Free" milk; there may be "No Extra Hormone Added" milk, but there isn't "Hormone Free". bST naturally occurs in a cow and you will find in in ALL milk from cows, even organic milk. rbST is given to some cows to help increase milk production. If people want to buy organic milk, milk from cows not injected with rbST, or from a commercial dairy herd, great. I just feel that the consumer needs to understand the full implications of paying for "better" milk and not receiving the perceived benefits. I work for a company that spray dries cheese, and there is a small market for rbST free cheese. However, as a company, there is NO way of proving or disproving that the cheese we get from our suppliers is rbST free or not; there are no known differences between non-rbST and non-supplemented cheeses that we can test for. We can only go with our suppliers word. Believe me, we pay a VERY high premium for this dairy product and we could very well be gettin supplemented product, but we'll never know.
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