Most dairy producers have probably heard that in vitro fertilization (IVF) is expensive but may not know much more about it than that. It’s true, IVF can be expensive, but so is feed and labor.

A massive beef recall linked to the processing of cull dairy cows at a California slaughterhouse appears to be an isolated case in which the federal meat inspection system failed, industry participants say. Earlier this year, the USDA issued a recall of nearly nine million pounds of beef produced at the Rancho Feeding Corp. plant in Petaluma, California. The recall amounted to a full year’s worth of production at the plant that was later shut down.

Testing the Waters: Why every U.S. dairy should care about a court case affecting five families in Washington If you think things are tough now, just imagine what would happen if cow manure was regulated as solid waste. Dairy farms would have to operate much like sanitary landfills. It could happen.

Congress enacted the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in 1976 to protect people and the environment from solid and hazardous waste. The idea was to regulate sources of waste such as underground storage tanks and municipal landfills. It’s a good bet that lawmakers never meant the law to apply to livestock manure.

Plaintiffs in the Yakima Valley dairy lawsuits are veterans in the environmental-agriculture legal wars. Some might call them serial litigators. The Center for Food Safety (CFS) and the Community Association for Restoration of the Environment (CARE) have both filed numerous lawsuits against agricultural targets over the past 17 years. Both non-profit organizations were founded in 1997.

If this legal battle were a baseball game, it would still be in the first inning. The fight between environmental activists and a group of Yakima Valley dairymen is just beginning. The case could drag on for years. It’s being watched around the country and stands a good chance of going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, some attorneys predict.

Editor’s note: This article is the second in a two-part series about the controversy surrounding aspartame in milk. People are passionate about their milk.

The way some consumer advocates see it, the dairy industry is up to no good. The reason: The industry’s desire to change federal rules regarding milk labeling and artificial sweeteners.

Industry representatives attending the Western Dairy Air Quality Symposium April 17 in Boise, Idaho, described a regulatory environment that’s about as predictable as the weather. The gathering, sponsored by the Western States Dairy Producers Trade Association, looked at how producers have been affected. A few examples: