HAGERSTOWN, Maryland (AP) – A dairy farmer whose herd includes two cloned cows said Tuesday his milk processor recently stopped accepting shipments from him, even though he voluntarily dumps milk from the clones and their 14 offspring.

Farmer Gregory C Wiles said the other cows in his herd of 110 have produced nearly 3,000 gallons (11,355 litres) of milk since Thursday, when the US Food and Drug Administration declared products from cloned livestock are safe to eat. He said the milk will be wasted unless the dispute is resolved quickly.

The processor, Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Co-operative Association of Reston, Virgiinia, said it suspended Wiles December 28 because of health violations on his Williamsport, Maryland, farm unrelated to clones. The violations stem from milk output that is too low to allow inspectors to take required samples from Wiles’ oversized bulk storage tank, co-op officials said.

“This has nothing to do with his ownership of cloned cows,” co-op spokeswoman Amber DuMont said. “Greg’s field representative and our member-services team have advised him we’d be happy to reinstate his membership if he increases his production such that we are able to take that sample in accordance with Grade A regulations.”

Wiles is in dire financial straits and facing eviction from the farm he manages for his father. He contends the milk co-operative shunned him because of public wariness about clones.

The food industry has voluntarily barred distribution of food from cloned animals for several years, and it continues to do so while the Government gathers public comment on a proposal to allow sales of such products without special labelling.

“The milk co-operatives are scared right now,” Wiles said.

Neither the National Milk Producers Federation, which represents dairy farmers, nor the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which represents beef producers, has heard of other farmers with cloned livestock being suspended by marketing co-ops or buyers, spokesmen for the trade groups said.

Furthermore, “as far as we know, nobody is not honouring the voluntary moratorium about not shipping or not marketing cloned animal products”, said Chris Galen, spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation.

There are about 150 cloned dairy cattle on US farms and universities, Galen said.

Wiles said that if he cannot find a new home for his cloned cows and their offspring, he will probably sell them for use in the human food chain despite the informal ban. It is a threat he has used before; this past fall, during negotiations about the long-running health violations, Wiles told Maryland & Virginia co-op director Janet Stiles that he would add cloned-cow milk to his bulk tank and invite news media to watch unless the co-op backed off, Stiles said.

She said she told Wiles the co-op would suspend him if he broke the informal ban on cloned livestock products.