Open Country Dairy’s Laurie Margrain told Dairy News he was surprised when he heard the news about Fonterra finding minute traces of DCDs in its product. He says there hasn’t so far been any implication arising from the DCD issue for his company.
Some testing has been done but the results are not yet known. “I don’t think we are likely to find anything as we have a very small number of farms on our total supply base that use DCDs.”
But Margain made it clear that if they had been told earlier they would have been able to deal with their customers earlier and probably make some changes.
Questions are swirling about over when Fonterra should have told independent processors about the DCD find. Fonterra discovered traces of DCD in its product in November last year. It informed MPI in November when validations tests were carried out.
The MPI announced on January 24 that fertiliser companies were withdrawing DCD products. It appears the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand (DCANZ), which represents all dairy companies and is chaired by Fonterra director Malcolm Bailey, was told about the situation only a week or so before the issue became known publicly.
While other independent dairy companies are saying little publicly about the situation, there is clearly some angst about the way Fonterra handled the situation and the fact that MPI, which has a food safety regulatory role, did not also communicate with them right at the start.
Bailey was unavailable for comment last week. Westland Milk chief executive Rod Quin did not wish to comment when approached by Dairy News.
Fonterra Shareholders Council chairman Ian Brown says he hasn’t heard any adverse comments from shareholders on the co-op’s handling of the issue.
He says farmers are concerned about the impact of the DCD scare on its trade. “It has the potential to affect our milk sales and our revenue and this would affect the milk payout to farmers but so far there’s no evidence to suggest this has happened,” he told Dairy News.
Brown says the bigger concern facing farmers is the withdrawal of DCD products and its impact on their efforts to mitigate nitrate leaching.
