EU Regs Are Pushing U.S. Cell Counts Lower
Non-compliant milk dropped 40% in 2012
An analysis of bulk tank somatic cell counts in four Federal Milk Marketing Orders suggests the 400,000 cell/ml European Union (EU) threshold may be having a positive impact on U.S. milk quality.
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For the first time, the milk volume weighted average of SCCs fell below 200,000 cells/ml in 2012, according to USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). The average was 206,000 cells/ml in 2011, and it fell to 194,000 cells/ml in 2012.
The EU now requires that any milk or dairy products have an SCC of less than 400,000 cells/ml based on four consecutive rolling three-month geometric means. Failure to meet this standard requires farms to obtain a derogation or other non-export market. Since it is difficult and expensive to segregate milk, milk buyers require non-compliance farms to obtain the derogation.
Four Federal Orders—Central, Mideast, Southwest and Upper Midwest—collect SCC data. According to this data, some 6% to 10% of U.S. milk shipments would have been non-compliant in 2012. But these are typically smaller farms, who struggle most with milk quality. "These shipments represented less than 3% of milk shipped during the monitored months," say APHIS officials.
Shipments of non-compliant milk dropped dramatically from just under 10% in January 2012 to 6% in June, and then upticked slightly during the hot summer months. They dropped to less than 6% by December 2012. The milk volume of non-compliant milk was about 3% in January 2012 and then hovered just above 2% the rest of the year.
There’s other good news, as well. "Since 1997, the milk-weighted bulk tank SCCs in the U.S. have decreased 101,000 cells/ml (32.4%)," say APHIS officials. Dairy Herd Improvement Association (DHIA) data also show a similar decline, with DHIA herd SCCs declining from 314,000 cells/ml in 1997 to 200,000 cells/ml in 2012.
