This year, 338 dairy farms in the state stopped milking cows. That’s according to information Action 2 News obtained in a report Friday from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
The state’s milk market is struggling while farmers, politicians and consumers look for the reasons why– now turning to the federal government, with plans to change the labels on non-dairy products.
“‘Milk’ is defined in the current standard of identity as being something from a lactating animal, and people have been using the term on things that aren’t derived from a lactating animal,” said FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who is making plans to crack down on producers of non-dairy milk using that word.
“Imitation products should not be able to use dairy’s good name,” said U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), who is behind the push. “Our dairy farmers are in crisis right now. They are seeing very, very challenging times. The price of milk has been low. I’m not saying that this is the problem in totality. What I’m saying is that there’s a perfect storm of challenges and it could be solved if the agency simply followed its own rules.”
The fight isn’t sitting well with everyone, however. Charlee Wilson owns the vegan store Nectar in downtown Green Bay. As someone who regularly uses almond milk in her products, she says she’ll go along with regulations, but the fight doesn’t necessarily make sense to her.
“We would just change our menu to whatever the FDA is going call almond milk now. I would still use the product,” said Wilson. “I think ‘milk’ is just a describing term.”
She also things the fight is misplaced. “[Milk alternatives are] not there to rob real milk of its title. I think if you’re going to add it to your coffee or cereal, you know, if it was called ‘almond sweat,’ that wouldn’t be too appetizing,” she laughed.
“I don’t think it’s fair for the FDA to kind of pick on a certain group of businesses or group or group of entities that are creating a product, just because they use a term,” said Wilson.
The FDA says the directives could take about a year to put into place.
Source: kwqc.com