Tillamook Creams Monsanto

[March 2nd, 2005] On Monday, the dairy farmers of the Tillamook County Creamery Association voted to ban rbST, a growth hormone that boosts milk production, from their herds.

The vote wasn't close—83 to 43, in a co-op with 147 total members. In many ways, however, the outcome represented a chance for David to dance in Goliath's end zone.

On one side: most of Tillamook's butter barons, anxious milk drinkers and the Physicians for Social Responsibility.

On the other: this week's Rogue, monster agrotech company Monsanto.

Last May, the Tillamook co-op's board voted unanimously to phase out rbST, a genetically engineered Monsanto product whose full name is recombinant bovine somatotropin (mmm—bon appétit!). The move was intended to calm consumer fears about genetic engineers tinkering with the food supply.

Some critics think rbST leaves cows more prone to bacterial infections, causing farmers to use more antibiotics and, in turn, increasing antibiotic resistance in humans. Others worry that milk from treated cows hikes the risk of breast cancer in women by throwing hormone levels out of whack.

Even though none of this has been proven conclusively, most industrialized countries don't allow farmers to use the hormone.

"We don't want to overstate the science," says Rick North, a Portland doctor with Physicians for Social Responsibility. "But there's a significant amount of data, and a lot of unanswered questions."

While North's group played a key role in channeling consumer concerns about rbST (by, for example, peppering dairy farmers with postcards relaying criticism), Monsanto mounted a full-court press to keep Tillamook in line.

Monsanto's lobbying campaign eventually crossed the line between corporate hardball and outright roguery. After the Tillamook board stood firm in a January vote, sticking to an April 1 deadline for all co-op members to drop the drug, a D.C. lawyer named James Miller showed up last month to drum up opposition.

No one will admit to paying Miller: not Monsanto, not those Tillamook farmers who wanted to keep using the hormone. But Miller's firm, King & Spalding, has serious Monsanto connections. A former King & Spalding lawyer, for instance, later joined the FDA and played a role in a number of rulings favorable to Monsanto.

Miller hasn't responded to any press or public inquiries. He did, however, write up a change to Tillamook's bylaws, which would have prevented the co-op from banning any FDA-approved substance.

"No one will say they're paying this guy, yet he's the author of the bylaw change," North says. "What, is he doing it out of the goodness of his heart?"

Monsanto's machinations follow its long campaign to squelch opposition to genetically modified food. In 2002, the company spent more than $5 million to defeat an Oregon ballot measure that simply would have required labels on GM foods.

On the lactic front, Monsanto funds the Hoover Institute, a neoconservative think-tank that runs a campaign called Milk Is Milk, attacking organic dairies.

The scientific debate over rbST remains inconclusive. But consumers don't like it much. Three cheers for the Tillamook farmers for refusing to let Monsanto, er, cow them.