Recently in his Animal and Dairy Sciences blog, Terry Etherton commented on the growing problem related to the pricing of dairy products marketed as “rbST-free” or “organic”. His own observations, he stated, were backed up by recent American Farm Bureau Federation Marketbasket Surveys which showed that conventional dairy products are sold at much lower prices than “rbST-free” and “organic” products. CGFI research has also found that to be the case. In fact, recent grocery store checks conducted in cities such as Seattle, Philadelphia and Minneapolis have shown that milk marketed as “rbST-free” or “organic” is sold at prices as much as 100 percent higher than its conventional competition. Something isn’t right about this situation! Somebody is getting rich off of milk that is labeled one way, but is exactly the same compositionally- and I guarantee you it’s not the dairy farmer who has given up their right to use rbST to earn a living. No…it’s not them. In fact, they will have to work harder now to make the same amount of money they could have if they were producing conventional milk. When are we as consumers going to stand up and say enough is enough? When are we going to put a stop to the fear-mongering that is so prevalent and demand the right to purchase whatever kind of dairy we want to without the irrational fear that we could be endangering our loved ones? Enough is enough. |