It’s Business as Usual for Farmers Using Posilac

Some Fear Ramifications From Monsanto Sale Announcement

Chris Torres
Staff Writer

Monsanto’s decision last week to sell its Posilac business has been met with disappointment and fear from farmers who say they use the product to more efficiently run their business.

The company announced last week that it was getting out of the recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) business, even though, according to a company representative, the business was “growing” and profits from the product have been increasing.

Danielle Jany, spokesperson for Monsanto, said Monday that the company’s focus has shifted to improving it’s genetically modified (GMO) crops business and that the decision to sell Posilac was in no way a result of increased scrutiny of the product by consumers and retailers.

Last year, the company sold it’s swine gene business, Choice Genetics.

“It really comes down to our core business,” Jany said. “Posilac is a positive and successful product and we hope to reposition it with a successful buyer.”

Even though the company hasn’t found any suitors, Jany said Posilac would be an attractive investment for any company willing to buy it.

Monsanto has a policy of not releasing the exact number of dairy farmers using the product, citing privacy issues. However, Jany did estimate that the product is used on about one-third of the dairy herds in the country.

The rbST issue has generated a lot of controversy at a time when the local and “sustainable” ag movement has grown and more dairy processors have demanded milk be labeled to differentiate milk produced from cows not injected with the hormone.

Many countries have even banned the use of the hormone, pending more testing on its long term effects.

Posilac, the brand name for rbST, first came on the market in 1994.

Farmers in the area said they received notices last week by mail and by local representatives of the company of the decision to sell Posilac. Company officials assured farmers that the product would still be available for them to use.

Most say it is business as usual. But some can’t help to think of a future without Posilac and what they would have to do to keep their operations going.

Alfred Wanner of Wanner’s Pride and Joy Farm in Lancaster County said he has seen daily production from his 600 cows increase by eight to 10 pounds per cow as a result of using Posilac.

He said he would have to increase his herd by about 75 cows to maintain the kind of production he has now.

Logan Bower, a dairy farmer from Perry County and president of the Professional Dairy Managers of Pennsylvania (PDMP), questions the company’s decision in light of the product's success.

“Big business is buying and selling all the time. But I think this is some sort of signal. What kind of signal it is, I don’t really know,” Bower said, adding that he would have to add at least 35 more cows to his 500 cow operation in order to maintain his current production.

With dairy prices dropping and his input costs increasing, dairy farmer Rod Hissong of Mercer County doesn't like the idea of possibly not being able to use Posilac to maintain his herd’s production.

“I just can’t imagine in today’s market trying to deal with that decrease in milk production,” Hissong said. “I hope to keep using it as long as I can. But it’s a scary thing.”

Duane Hershey, a 500-head dairy farmer from Chester County, said he would likely have to increase his herd size if he wasn’t able to use rbST but cringes at the idea of having to expand his farm any further.

“I don’t know if I would want to expand on this site much more than right now,” Hershey said. “We would have to milk more cows to produce the same amount to pay the bills.”