Thursday, January 08, 2009

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

last updated: April 12, 2008 08:36:15 AM

WASHINGTON -- Some of the nation's dairy farmers worry that they could lose income if efforts to keep "downer" cattle out of slaughterhouses are increased, but a Modesto-based industry leader said that's not the case for his group.

In 2004, the Agriculture Department banned the slaughter of cows too sick or injured to stand as part of the effort to prevent bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease.

Michael Marsh, chief executive officer of Western United Dairymen in Modesto, said it supports a bill by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would increase inspections and penalties related to these cattle.

The discussion comes in the wake of an undercover video that showed workers at Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino dragging downer dairy cows with chains, shocking them with electric prods and shooting streams of water in their faces.

The USDA shut down the plant, saying the company hadn't prevented downer cattle from entering the food supply. No link to mad cow disease was found.

"We can't have any more of situations like what happened in Chino," Marsh said.

Dairy farmers get a small portion of their income by selling cows to meat processors after they no longer are useful for milk production. Marsh said this should never include sick or injured cows.

He added that the rules should not apply to cows that were briefly hobbled by pregnancy.

Harold Ellenbecker, a dairy farmer in Greenville, Wis., said that, often, a cow that goes down is just injured but has no illness that would make it unsafe for human consumption.

"It's the inspector's job to see if they're healthy enough to enter the food supply," he said. "There's too many hungry people out there, that meat should be used" if an inspector approves it. Ellenbecker said he loses $3,000 to $8,000 a year because of the current ban, and tightening it would further depress dairy farmer income.

The National Milk Producers Federation doesn't think current policy needs tightening.

"Cattle can have trouble standing or walking for a variety of reasons, including fatigue, injury and illness," spokesman Chris Galen said. "Whether such conditions are temporary or permanent, or whether they pose a food safety concern, should be left to qualified food safety regulators."

Animal welfare groups argue that it's often difficult to make a call on the spot and want a ban. Gene Baur, president of Farm Sanctuary, said USDA inspectors can't always tell if an injury is the result of some underlying neurological problem. Further, he argued, the inspectors don't have time to do thorough reviews.

Baur said the USDA has resisted a ban in part because of opposition from the dairy and packer industries, "which want to make every last dollar on these animals."

Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said he was limited in what he could say on the issue because of a lawsuit by the Humane Society of the United States, which revealed the Chino video.

"But what I can say is we're in the midst of an investigation to find out what went wrong, how widespread it was, and what we can do about it," he said. "And we're going to take the appropriate actions when the investigation gets done, both internally at USDA and externally with the industry."

Bee staff writer John Holland contributed to this report.

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