Livestock Feed Was Tainted With Pesticide : Closed Dairies Slowly Return to Milk Market

Nature slowly cleansed their dairy herds of heptachlor, but a legacy of lost dreams and lawsuits lingers for the Ozark farmers who unwittingly bought cheap livestock feed tainted with the banned pesticide. “Most have survived all this, but they are a lot worse off now financially than they were before,” state Sen. Bill Walters, who filed lawsuits for some of the farmers, said recently. “I’ve sat at their kitchen tables and seen them cry.”

A settlement for 48 farmers, expected soon, would close out a saga of deceit, confusion and fear that began in the mid-1980s when heptachlor-treated seed was fermented to make gasohol and the mash byproduct was illegally sold as feed. Milk was recalled and farms were quarantined.

“We are in the final throes of the final settlement with the final defendants,” said attorney John Elrod of Siloam Springs. None of the farmers’ lawyers would give details of any settlement, but Elrod said the final one will “come pretty darn close” to adequately compensation.

Livelihoods Suspended

“Some of these farmers were in their 50s and 60s, and dairies had been their entire livelihood,” said Steve Hignight, the Benton County agent. “Then, all of a sudden, you’ve still got all your expenses and you’ve got nothing coming in and everything’s going out.”

Hignight had advised against buying the mash sold by J. E. W. Inc. and Valley Feeds Inc., not because of contamination--knowledge of that didn’t come until later--but because of its high water content.

To the farmers who bought the mash in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, the price seemed right. Tons of the mash were consumed here in the Arkansas dairy country.

The farmers’ delight at finding an inexpensive feed turned to shock in March, 1986, when tests showed their cows’ milk was tainted with heptachlor, a suspected carcinogen outlawed in since 1983.

Authorities recalled dairy products in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and Tennessee, and warned nursing mothers not to drink milk. The Food and Drug Administration quarantined more than 130 dairy herds in the three states where the feed was sold.

A Friendly Ear

“I had to be more of a listening ear than anything else, offering a couch for people to talk,” said Hignight. “A lot of times with these producers, all you could do was spend a little time with them.”

Jim Brown, manager of Cave Springs Farmers Cooperative in this town between Bentonville and Springdale, lost $90,000 in sales when one quarantined dairy turned to raising turkeys. He is grateful that more dairies weren’t shut down.

Many dairies remained heptachlor-free, and the quarantine eventually was lifted from all but 137 herds in the three states. Most herds were declared clear of contamination within 18 months, but a few herds emerged from quarantine only last fall.

Heptachlor settles in the fatty tissues, and the only way to purge it from cattle is by milking them. It is a frustrating task for farmers to pour the frothy fresh product on the ground. “For well over a year and a half, that’s all they did--milk and dump, because they were unable to do anything else,” Hignight said.

‘Black Magic’ Cures

As the farmers searched for answers, “we had folks come in with black magic and everything else that would cure you out in two weeks, and really sold them a bill of goods.” One such “cure” proved to be charcoal, “and they got people to buy it at a time when they already had their feet kicked out from under them,” he said. “All I remember is, it was outrageous beyond reason.”

Diversification saved some families, and many got low-interest loans from the cooperatives that marketed their milk. They were repaid when the farmers got loans from the federal Dairy Indemnity Fund. The U. S. Agriculture Department paid more than $5.2 million to dairies in the three states--$3.4 million in Arkansas, $1.3 million in Oklahoma and $524,000 in Missouri.

Court judgments had allowed the farmers to repay the fund about $480,000 by early this month, said USDA spokesman Clarence Domire in Washington. Elrod said the repayments are closer to $700,000, and that the remaining reimbursement is a critical issue in settling his sweeping lawsuit--the largest one filed.

Liable Defendants Named

Participants in the proposed settlement, Elrod said, would be J. E. W. and Valley Feeds, Velsicol Chemical Corp. of Memphis, which made heptachlor, Ceiba-Geigy Corp., owner of Funk’s Seed Co., which sold tainted grain to the Van Buren companies, and Great Northern Commodities of Detroit, a seed broker.

In addition, four J. E. W. officers were convicted or pleaded guilty to a variety of charges, including wire fraud and adulteration of feed.

The farmers, most of whom have been involved in settlements, won’t talk about the case or their problems, but Brown said that justice has prevailed.

“It’s just like me coming up here and taking your car away from you, and going to your house and burning your house down, and you get fired for it and you knew it was beyond your control. Where are you going to turn?

“This whole community felt it, and it was a bad situation, but they are fighting back. They’re fighters and they’re going to make it.”

Walters agreed: “It can take the heart out of a family, but one thing about farmers in general is they are tough and they are survivors. And these farmers will come back.”