The Cal Poly Dairy and rBGH

The Eugene and Rachel Boone Dairy Science Complex at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo contains a fully-operational dairy and research facilities for students in the Dairy Science department. This complex is located on Mt. Bishop Road, past the Crops Unit and Veterinary Hospital, and sits in the scenic foothills of Bishop’s Peak. Cal Poly has one of the largest Dairy Science departments in the country and it is the only university on the west coast to offer a specific Dairy Science major. The first-rate facilities at Cal Poly allow students to learn about feeding, milking, calf raising, artificial insemination, and the management of dairies in the classroom and then practice what they have learned on the purebred Jerseys and Holsteins.

The Dairy Cattle Instructional Unit was built in 1992 and is used for a wide range of instructional activities. The first floor of this unit contains two classrooms, a computer room, a nutrition and physiology laboratory, and a microbiology laboratory. Numerous plaques and awards from local cattle shows dot the white walls. Cal Poly has bred some of the top-rated cows in the nation for type and production and individual cows have won many awards for the rich content and amount of milk produced. Industrial-like stairs along one wall lead up to the second floor where visitors can view the milking process. Cows are milked at the milking parlor daily from 4 to 6 am and 4 to 6 pm. This immaculate parlor can milk 16 cows at one time and contains state of the art milking equipment including an energy-efficient pre-cooling system, which the milk passes through before being stored in two 3,000-gallon bulk tanks. The physiology laboratory is used for artificial insemination, feed analysis, and dairy biotechnology courses. Students perform experiments such as embryo manipulations and transfer techniques in this laboratory.

Beyond the Instructional Unit are the barns where all the cows reside. The small Hospital and Maternity Barn is used for calving and caring for sick cows. It also contains individual habitats for newborns where they can be monitored and fed according to specific guidelines. The Milking Cow Barn is the largest barn at the dairy, located just behind the Hospital and Maternity Barn. Here, approximately 80 Holstein and 85 Jersey cows reside. A mixture of hay, alfalfa, beet pulp, and cotton seed line the walkway as dozens of cows poke their head out of the metal bars to eat a meal. A gravity flow flush system is used to clean the barn floors. With the touch of a button, water flows down the flush lanes and enters a settling tank where the solids are pumped to a manure separator. Liquids continue on to the waste lagoons and the solids are composted, dried, and utilized as bedding for the milking cows. Several cows lie upon these beds of manure as others wander into the open-air dirt fields. These cows eat more nutritiously than most people. Cal Poly makes sure to take good care of their cows because not only are they expensive, about $2000 each, but comfortable, happy cows produce more milk.

The newest addition to the Dairy Science Complex is the Dairy Product Teaching and Research Building. No tours are allowed of this building and because of state health codes, a sign on the front entrance prohibits anyone from entering the building if they recently walked through the barns. This research building was completed in 1996 at a cost of $7.5 million. Here, students and researchers perform detailed analysis of the physical and chemical properties of dairy products and develop new products in the research laboratories. Within this building is the Cal Poly Creamery. At the creamery, students learn how to manage a processing plant and learn the science and technology of manufacturing milk, cheese, butter, ice cream, and cottage cheese. Some of the products made here are sold throughout the campus and at the San Luis Obispo weekly farmer’s market.

The use of Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) is a major issue at any dairy and Cal Poly is no different. rBGH is a genetically engineered copy of a naturally occurring hormone produced by pregnant cows in order to produce more milk for her calf. rBGH is intended to be injected into milk cows every two weeks to stimulate milk production by as much as 10 to 15 percent. rBGH is manufactured by Monsanto Company and the drug is sold to dairy farmers under the name Posilac. The Food and Drug Administration admits that cows injected with rBGH could suffer from increased udder infections, severe reproductive problems, digestive disorders, foot and leg ailments, and persistent sores and lacerations. Even so, the use of rBGH on dairy cows was approved by the FDA in late 1993 and has been in use since 1994. The administration claims that milk from rBGH-treated cows is safe to consume and there is virtually no difference between milk with the drug and milk without it. According to an article on the website, www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com, rBGH has been banned in Canada and Europe and boycotted by 95 percent of United States dairy farmers. Peter Montague, Ph.D., from the Environmental Research Foundation, discovered substantial evidence indicating that milk from rBGH-treated cows is likely to feature: more pus from infected cows' udders; an "off" taste and shortened shelf life because of the pus; more antibiotics given to cows to treat those infections; higher fat content and lower protein content; and more of a tumor-promoting chemical called IGF-I, which has been implicated in cancers of the colon, smooth muscle, and breast.

There has been huge controversy over whether or not companies are allowed to label their products “rBGH free.” A majority of American consumers have indicated that they do not want milk that contains genetically-engineered hormones, and they want milk labeled so they can make an informed decision about the milk they buy. The popular ice cream company, Ben & Jerry’s, sued the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois because the city and state would not allow the company to label their products as rBGH free. In this case, while the FDA refused to require rBGH labeling, they did say that food manufacturers could voluntarily label their products. Ben & Jerry’s submitted this label to the FDA for approval: “rBGH Free, The family farmers who supply our milk and cream pledge not to treat their cows with recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH). We oppose the use of rBGH even though the FDA has concluded that no significant difference has been shown and no test can now distinguish between milk from rBGH-treated and untreated cows.” The FDA had no objection to this label and neither did forty-six states. But four states, including Illinois, prohibit companies from mentioning rBGH on their labels. Since it is unrealistic for Ben & Jerry’s to create different packaging for Illinois, the company challenged the Chicago and Illinois laws. Ben & Jerry’s 1996 press release contains persuasive and thorough explanations about why they oppose the use of rBGH and why they are challenging the legal system. The press release explains that they buy their milk from small family owned farms which makes the public feel good about Ben & Jerry’s because they are helping the small farms.

The FDA offers two justifications for preventing labeling: 1) The FDA is not requiring anyone to keep track of who is and is not using rBGH and grocery stores might make false claims if they said their milk was rBGH free. 2) The FDA says there is virtually no difference between milk from cows injected with rBGH and cows not injected. Advocates for rBGH free products suggest that the FDA require Monsanto to create and maintain a public list of people who buy rBGH, allowing grocery stores to determine whether a particular farmer is using the drug.

Monsanto gives a thorough report of the benefits of their rBGH product, Posilac, on the company’s website. They say that milk from rBGH treated cows is “the same, safe, nutritious milk” as milk from cows not treated with rBGH. Monsanto also brings up the environmental benefits of using Posilac on milking cows. They say that the use of rBGH results in the use of less water, land, soil loss, fuel, methane gas, and manure. However, Monsanto gives no explanation for how the use of rBGH results in these reductions. The site also includes a page titled What Farmers Are Saying About Posilac, which includes about a dozen quotes from farmers around the country, such as “I use Posilac because it makes me money,” and “Cows gotta eat to make milk and they eat more when supplemented with Posilac.” While all the information provided on Monsanto’s site convinces me that rBGH treated milk does not harm humans, nothing is said about rBGH harming the cows. Since Monsanto never defends the issue of hurting cows, saying something like, “rBGH has not been shown to harm cows,” I believe they are just avoiding the issue because they know it is true that Posilac can harm cows. I understand why some farmers would treat their cows with rBGH to make more money from their increased milk production but I am opposed to the idea. It has been proven that the drug is likely to harm the cows and with a surplus of milk in this country, increasing the milk production is unnecessary.

Cal Poly uses rBST, recombinant bovine somatatropin, a synthetic duplicate of rBGH, on about 40% of their milking cows. Les Ferreira, head of the Dairy Science Department at Cal Poly, states, “Cows receiving rBST more efficiently convert feed into milk. Cows receiving rBST have identical levels of BST in their milk when compared to cows not receiving rBST.” Another professor in the department, Stan Henderson, claims that using rBST on cows in the late lactation period helps maintain their milk production. Cal Poly’s use of rBGH on a minority of the cows is a smart idea. Dairy Science students can study the effects of rBGH and compare the treated and untreated cows. In the Dairy Science Department at a university, where the goal is educating future leaders, it is good for students to have experience with different types of cows and different methods of milk production.

The Cal Poly Dairy Complex is a remarkable facility for a university. The use of rBST on a percentage of the Cal Poly dairy cattle adds to the learning process for Dairy Science students. These students become well prepared for employment in the various phases of the dairy industry because of all the hands-on experience they receive at the dairy. The herd of cattle at Cal Poly is well taken care of and receives first-rate care from the state of the art equipment. Cal Poly students are able to milk the cows and create products from this milk, which is sold to their peers throughout campus. The Cal Poly Dairy is a superb complex where tomorrow’s dairy scientists can learn and work in a fully operational facility.

Sources Used:

http://www.benjerry.com/our_company/press_center/press/bgh-pressconf96.html

http://www.organicconsumers.org/rbghlink.html

http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/bgh.htm

http://www.monsantodairy.com/about/index.html

http://dairy.calpoly.edu/

http://www.american.edu/TED/bst.htm