Environmental Matters in the Commonwealth of Kentucky

In Ohio, a coalition of consumer groups and organic dairy producers is mobilizing against a proposed state rule that wouldn’t allow milk labels to say whether the cows were given synthetic hormones. A rule proposed by the Ohio Department of Agriculture would prevent labels from making the hormone distinction unless they also contain the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s findings that there is no significant difference between milk produced with or without the recombinant bovine somatotropin, or rbST, hormone. The debate over labeling in many cases is pitting dairy producers who don’t use the hormone against dairy farmers who use the hormone to boost milk production and help their profits.