According to a news source, a Chinese court began hearing claims on November 27, 2009, in a civil suit brought against a dairy company and supermarket by the parents of a child allegedly sickened by melamine-contaminated milk. The parents are reportedly seeking US$8,080, claiming that the milk caused their 20-month-old son’s kidney stone. The companies have apparently argued in their defense that the injury should be covered under a government compensation program and that no medical records link the child’s kidney problems to drinking tainted milk. The judge has scheduled another hearing for December 9 and requested that the parties produce additional evidence. The case is the first to be heard in the tainted milk scandal, which purportedly resulted in the deaths of six infants, injury to 300,000 children and a worldwide recall of products containing contaminated milk powder. The largest company implicated, the Sanlu Group, paid US$132 million into…
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A U.S. attorney in Maryland has filed a complaint for injunction against a dairy operation and its owner seeking to stop their alleged long-term misuse of antibiotics in animals that were sold for consumption. United States v. Old Carolina Farm, No. __ (D. Md., filed November 3, 2009). According to the complaint, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration and Maryland Department of Agriculture investigations since the mid-1990s showed that drug residues in the tissues of animals the defendants sold exceeded established limits for a number of antibiotics. Contending that consumers of such meats “may experience severe allergic reactions” or develop “antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria,” the complaint alleges that the dairy’s owner ran afoul of the law essentially because he failed and refused to maintain treatment or drug inventory records. The U.S. government seeks permanent injunctive relief to stop the dairy from introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce and from…
EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has reportedly announced €280 million ($417 million) in additional subsidies to dairy farmers affected by plummeting agricultural prices. Intended to appease vocal protesters and agricultural lobbies, the aid responded to requests from 21 member states, including France and Germany, despite objections from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. In addition, the European Union has agreed to cap milk production, although it stopped short of creating a pan-European institution to regulate the market. “We hope that we can stabilize the market with the proposals that we have today,” Swedish Farm Minister Eskil Erlandsson was quoted as saying. Meanwhile, the European Milk Board has welcomed the subsidies and production limits but noted that farmers have already lost €15 billion ($22 billion) in the current economic crisis. “That shows that 280 million euros won’t get us far,” the board president told reporters. See The Canadian Press, Daily…
Three U.S. Senators have introduced a bill (S. 1783) that would extend mandatory country-of-origin (COOL) labeling to dairy products. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s current COOL law took effect in 2008 and requires origin labeling on meats, nuts and raw produce, but not dairy products or processed foods. The Dairy COOL Act of 2009 extends the current law to include milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, and butter, but retains the exemption for processed foods. “With the discovery last year of widespread use of melamine in Chinese dairy products, consumers deserve to know whether the milk used to produce the dairy products they buy meets the high safety standards used in the U.S.,” said Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), who co-sponsored the legislation with colleagues Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Al Franken (D-Minn.). Franken said the bill helps address the issue of low milk prices by helping “American dairy farmers stand out in…
California and Michigan have adopted laws that animal welfare groups have reportedly heralded as landmark legislation. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) signed a bill (S.B. 135) prohibiting tail docking of dairy cows, a “ common and cruel mutilation,” according to the Humane Society of the United States. The California bill takes effect January 1, 2010. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm (D) signed a bill (H.B. 5127) requiring that certain farm animals be provided enough room to stand up, turn around and extend their limbs rather than being confined in cages that impede their movement. “All animals deserve humane treatment, including those raised for food,” said the head of the humane society about the Michigan bill, which phases out veal crates for calves within three years, and battery cages for laying hens and gestation crates for breeding sows within 10 years. See Humane Society of the United States Press Releases, October 12, 2009.
A coalition of dairy farmers from the northeastern United States has reportedly filed a putative class action against the Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) and Dean Foods Co., alleging that they have monopolized the distribution of fluid milk in the Northeast, fixed prices and created an economic crisis in the industry. Allen v. DFA, No. ___ (D. Vt., filed October 8, 2009). Similar litigation is reportedly pending in a federal court in Tennessee. According to plaintiffs’ counsel, “Many dairy farmers have been forced to choose between joining DFA or DMS [Dairy Marketing Services] or going out of business. If they join, they have to pay a fee to continue to market to their own customers at prices fixed by DFA, DMS and other cooperatives. Meanwhile major milk processors Dean and HP Hood, which is part-owned by DFA, enjoy the economic benefits.” He also reportedly said that the anticompetitive milk distribution…
The Cornucopia Institute, which represents the interests of small organic agricultural operations, has called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to investigate charges that Aurora Dairy’s High Plains facility is operating in violation of National Organic Program (NOP) standards. In its August 31, 2009, letter, the institute refers to a similar complaint it filed about Aurora Dairy in 2007. According to the letter, the agency assured the institute that the 2007 complaint “would be incorporated into the probation that Aurora Dairy was operating under, pursuant to a consent agreement signed with the Department. Based on freedom of information documents, obtained by The Cornucopia Institute, no scrutiny of this facility ever took place and the allegations we communicated in 2007 were never investigated.” The letter outlines how Aurora Dairy has allegedly fallen short of NOP requirements and specifically points to the planting of an annual forage crop in the animals’…
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced the creation of a Dairy Advisory Committee that will “play an important role in building a more stable market for dairy production for years to come,” according to an agency news release. The two-year committee will specifically review farm milk price volatility and dairy farmer profitability, and offer suggestions on how USDA can best address these issues to meet the dairy industry’s needs. The 15 members will include producers and producer organizations, processors and processor organizations, handlers, consumers, academia, retailers, and state agencies involved in organic and non-organic dairy at the local, regional, national, and international levels. Nominations will be accepted through September 28, 2009. See USDA News Release, August 25, 2009.
Multidistrict litigation plaintiffs who sued Aurora Dairy Corp., an accredited organic certifying agent and a number of food retailers have appealed the district court decision dismissing their claims to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. In re: Aurora Dairy Corp. Organic Milk Mktg. & Sales Practices Litig., MDL No. 08-1907 (E.D. Mo., appeal noticed July 2, 2009). As noted in the June 5, 2009, issue of this Update, the district court concluded that the claims, which involved allegations that Aurora Dairy sold its milk as organic while violating national organic program requirements, were preempted by federal law and regulations. In their list of issues on appeal, the plaintiffs question the validity of this determination.
The Nebraska Department of Agriculture has reportedly quarantined 42 herds involved in an ongoing bovine tuberculosis outbreak, which the department says may have already spread to Colorado and South Dakota because animals from quarantined herds were sold to cattle producers in those states. Transmitted through contact and respiration, bovine tuberculosis is easily transmitted within herds and in rare cases can be transmitted to humans who work directly with the animals or who consume unpasteurized milk and cheese. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is apparently collaborating with state officials to determine the source and extent of the outbreak. Greg Ibach, director of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, predicts that the quarantine, which includes approximately 15,000 cattle, is likely to continue growing in the weeks ahead because investigators are still tracking down the animals that may have had contact with an infected herd over the last two years. “It’s important to…
