A26-Uncwter Firming, Saturday, May 15, 1993
SRBC Decides Ag Should Pay
For Using Susquehanna Water
(Continued from Page A 1)
resentatives at the meeting,
relayed its decision regarding the
exemption of agriculture from
consumptive use, which took place
in May of last year and expired this
week. They unanimously passed
Resolution 93-01 at the meeting,
which extends the exemption until
May 13, 1994.
Until that time, Peter J. Bush,
New York Commission member,
said that the SRBC’s Ag Advisory
Committee must work on ways to
register all users in the basin and to
work on a proposal for fees for all
users.
Before the SRBC’s decision
was announced, Keith Masser,
president of the Pennsylvania
Cooperative Potato Growers and a
spokesperson for the Ag Use
Advisory Committee for the
SRBC, told the Commission that
most farmers in the basin are una
ware of the SRBC regulations.
(The regulations state that Com
mission approval is required for
groundwater withdrawals that
exceed an average of 100,000 gal
lons per day for any consecutive
30-day period. Also, approval is
required for consumptive uses that
exceed an average of 20,000 gal
lons per day for any consecutive
30-day period. The resolution,
which carries through from last
year to another year, suspended
application of the consumptive use
makeup regulation, now still in
Research Shows Milk Has Many Proteins
GEORGE F.W. HAENLEIN
Extension Dairy Specialist
University of Delaware
Milk Protein Confusion
Or Opportunity?
NEWARK, Del. Milk hasn’t
just one protein, but many.
In addition to milk’s being a
principal source of calcium, it has
protein for healthy muscle growth,
nutrition and human health. But
there seems to be little common
interest in the many protein con
stituents of milk’s total protein.
Now, after decades of research,
the protein content in milk is parti
ally used in payment to dairy
farmers. Consumers presumably
are more concerned with protein
than with the traditional milk fat
content differences.
Because the trait for milk pro
tein content is inherited, cows and
bulls can be selected for these dif
ferences. New cow strains with
higher protein content are possible
if that’s what the consumer wants.
Which consumer?
If food taste preference research
can be believed, consumers prefer
milk with a higher protein content.
Market trends, however, show on
ly that the consumer is interested
in less milk fat, not in more pro
tein.
Years ago, there were milks on
the market that had higher solids
and/or protein contents. All-Jersey
and Golden Guernsey are two
such examples, but they lost mar
ket share. So where’s the logic in
offering the dairy farmer a price
incentive for protein content? Is it
an attempt to reverse a market
trend by educating consumers to
drink more milk with higher pro
tein contents?
Increasing milk consumption is
of primary interest to dairy farm
ers, who receive a higher income
when milk is used as fluid milk.
They receive less money for milk
effect until May 1994. However,
the groundwater regulations
remain in full force and effect for
all types of withdrawals, according
to the SRBC).
Masser affirmed the opinion of
the ag advisory committee that
there is more water available in the
basin than the farmers could use.
and that agriculture continues to
remain in competition with feder
ally subsidized water, which is
allocated to the util ties.
Also, ag use does not affect the
water in the basin during low flow
rates, said Masser. Farmers con
tinue to implement and follow con
servation plans which help to
retain water in the basin.
He also questioned why munici
palities continue to remain exempt
from approval and monitoring
fees, especially in such steadily
growing urbanized areas such as
Baltimore, Md.
Masser told the SRBC that sup
port should be provided to the far
mers to obtain ways to build and
maintain water storage structures
if they must be charged with con
sumptive use and are required to
replenish the water they remove
from the basin for ag use.
The five-member Commission
which met on Thursday agreed that
a plan for regulating all water users
in the basin must be implemented.
However, according to John R.
McCarty, representative at the fed
that goes into manufacturing
cheese, yogurt and powder. At
least this is the conventional wis
dom of dairy-management ex
perts. More indirectly, and prob
ably more correctly, in the long
run this isn’t true.
In an indirect way, the price of
milk goes up or down more with
market trends in cheese sales. The
percentage of fluid milk sales var
ies less and, therefore, has less in
fluence on price.
When more cheese in Wiscon
sin and Minnesota is sold, the
overall milk price to dairy farmers
in our region goes up. So our pri
mary consumer is not really the
milk drinker, it seems, but the
cheese eater, and more specifical
ly, the pizza eater, because a lot of
cheese consumed is on pizza.
A colleague with much insight
into market dynamics used to
chuckle that dairy farmers should
offer a prayer of thanks every time
they pass a pizza shop!
Our main consumer, then, the
one who is interested in the pro
tein content of milk, is the cheese
maker. In fact, the cheese maker is
aware that there is more to protein
than a single entity.
In making cheeses, the cheese
maker separates casein (the major
protein constituent in total milk
protein) from the others, which are
in the whey.
Casein can make up 80 percent,
but research here at the University
of Delaware and at other experi
ment stations has shown that this
percentage can drop by as much as
half when mastitis occurs in the
udder. This variation, of course, is
of considerable interest to cheese
makers. Their cheese yields can be
disastrously less when they use
milks with different mastitis his
tories.
So cheese makers are taking an
interest in research that elucidates
cral level, more input is needed.
State commission member Carcn
Glotfelty said that the 20 percent
ag consumptive use is “quite a bit.
If we fail to deal with it, we’re fail
ing citizens in the basin as as
whole.” She said she is not com
fortable with making agriculture
compeletely exempt.
Bush said that there has been
discrimination and “special and
beneficial treatment to ag users.”
Maryland member Catherine P.
Stevenson said that in ho- state, it
wasn’t until the last decade that ag
use of basin water came into play,
but that farmers began to take
interest early on and were willing
to cooperate with the SRBC.
Masser said he was taken com
petely by surprise with the SRBC’s
decision. Up until this time the ag
representatives believed that the
SRBC was working within their
interests, and would continue to
keep agriculture exempt until a
gradual registration program for
farmers who use basin water could
be implemented.
Leon Ressler, Lancaster County
environmental agent, said that the
SRBC should not instruct farmers
not to draw water when they need
it the most. What is needed is bet
ter overall water management that
takes into account when the utili
ties and agriculture are using it and
make sure ag is given high enough
priority.
the characteristics of the different
protein constituents in total milk
protein, not that this is new re
* search. Information on the subject
has been hidden in the literature
for years, but the economic impli
cations are just beginning to sur
face.
While physical and chemical
research in milk proteins has been
going on for years, only scientists
were excited about it
Our own USDA regional re
search laboratory in Philadelphia
is a world leader in this field. We
at the University of Delaware Col
lege of Agricultural Sciences en
gaged in a collaborative project
with them until national budget
cuts reduced these and related ef
forts drastically in recent years.
Now new research in this field
comes from Canada, Europe and
India.
The information is not only
making order out of a multitude of
milk protein constituents, but is
also attaching some economic op
portunities to them.
In research 25 years ago here at
the university, we identified five
principal protein groups in milk,
each with several genetically and
chemically different members.
The casein group subdivided in
to four categories, with a total of
27 members, and the other protein
groups, with seven different gene
tic members.
This seems confusing only until
one gels caught up by the laws of
genetics with which one can trace
and predict the milk protein types
in offspring.
We determined the occurrence
and frequency in more than 3,000
Holsteins and Guernseys and
found distinct differences between
families of cows and between
breeds.
Furthermore, we found signifi
cant relationships between some
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genetic members and differences
in milk contents of total protein,
casein, fat and solids-not-fat.
Recently, Canadian research
demonstrated that there are eco
nomic advantages associated with
some of these genetic members in
the cheese-making process, and
not just in terms of different milk
composition.
If one realizes that protein dif
ferences are the result of the pre
sence or absence of specific amino
acids that make up proteins and
that these amino acid presences
and sequences are genetically fix
ed, then it is clear why some pro
tein members act differently in
cheese making and, of course, in
digestion and human nutrition.
It’s been established that certain
specific milk protein genetic
members have faster or slower
curd coagulation time, different
degrees of curd firmness or soft
ness, more or less heat stability in
processing, smaller or larger curd
size, and higher or lower cheese
yield. Sooner or later, all this will
be proven to be similar in different
digestibility levels for people, not
just in cheese making.
This news generates real excite
ment. considering the opportuni
ties in human nutrition and health,
as well as future market trends for
milk and milk products.
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