Possible EU-U.S. Trade Row Looming Over Milk Quality Standards

A new Transatlantic trade row may be brewing over a European Union move to tighten its monitoring of the quality of imported U.S. milk and dairy products as U.S. dairy exporters have reacted with anger to an EU decision to change the rules relating to the somatic cell count in U.S. milk products supplied to the European market.

A new Transatlantic trade row may be brewing over a European Union move to tighten its monitoring of the quality of imported U.S. milk and dairy products as U.S. dairy exporters have reacted with anger to an EU decision to change the rules relating to the somatic cell count in U.S. milk products supplied to the European market.

Beginning Oct. 1, any U.S. dairy processor exporting to the EU will need to certify that each individual farm that supplies milk for those exports complies with the EU's maximum somatic cell count ( SCC ) limit of 400,000 per milliliter of cow's milk. At present, the requirement is simply to meet the 400,000 SCC level on average for commingled milk delivered from all of the dairies supplying each processor.

U.S. sources believe the change will be extremely disruptive to trade, potentially jeopardizing up to $60 million in annual exports of milk and dairy products to the EU. But the European Commission says the 400,000 SCC threshold –– an indicator for inflammation (mastitis) –– has been established in EU law since 1992.

According to Frédéric Vincent, the European Commission's spokesperson for Health and Consumer Policy, the EU Food and Veterinary Office had noted as far back as 2003 that SCC was being assessed on a bulk milk supply basis in the United States, and had made a recommendation at that point that the switch be made to ensure that testing of raw milk for SCC was based on individual holding samples.

Moreover, he added, the move had already been agreed in principle by the U.S. government under the terms of a trade agreement drawn up at the start of this year.

"The U.S. agreed to re-write their instructions to reflect the requirement that milk obtained from the farm must meet EU requirements for SCC in their action plan of Jan. 8, 2010 ," Vincent said.

The European Commission is understood to have notified the United States initially that the EU would start enforcing the on-farm SCC requirement with beginning July 1 this year, but were ultimately persuaded to push the deadline back to Oct. 1.

But a source at one U.S. dairy cooperative said that at certain times of the year in the Northeast and Midwest, between 15 percent and 25 percent of milk volumes delivered will not be in compliance, and this, under the new rules, would lead to a ban on exports to the EU from any dairy processor that was receiving milk from any one above-the-limit farmer.

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