The Battle Over Food Labeling: Politics and Big Corporations

There has been a battle raging for some time now over whether milk can be labeled as coming from cows which are not being injected with hormones to increase their milk production capacity.  The FDA took the position that labeling milk which excluded milk from such cows as such was unlawful.  The State of Vermont took them to court over their position and won the first round of the battle -- but the battle continues.

The FDA took two positions on the subject.  One was that milk naturally contained the hormone so it was false advertising to label it as being free from it, and secondly that there was no health advantage to be gained from milk which excluded such a source and that which did not.

The battle, however, is actually being fought between two different forces and strangely, so far the little guys are winning.  The fight in Vermont was as much about trying to save the few small to moderate sized dairies in Vermont from being completely crushed by the industrial dairies in New York.  It was very difficult for the big guys to seperate the two types of milk from its producers so the industrial dairies were fighting with Vermont.  The ongoing funding in the fight to ban the label has, however, been from the chemical companies that produce the hormone -- but there are enough upscale consumers questioning the use of the hormone that the chemical companies and the industrial dairies are starting to lose ground in the fight.

Unfortunately, however, the little niche which has been created won't be the salvation of the small dairies because once the market moves substantially away from the pro-hormone milk, the big boys will switch and then dominate the market.  But it is nice to see the little guys winning at least for awhile.