Penicillin deliberately dropped into milk tank

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Police are investigating after penicillin was deliberately dropped into a tank of fresh milk on a West Coast dairy farm, contaminating the entire 3500 litre batch.

The raw milk was valued at about $2000, but the cost to the Inangahua farmer could be much higher because the contaminated milk was pumped into a tanker laden with milk from other dairy farms in the area, and he could be liable to pay for the entire load, which had to be dumped.

Constable Mark Watson of Reefton police said today that the incident happened at the beginning of February. He confirmed that the contamination was the antibiotic penicillin.

Federated Farmers West Coast president Katie Milne was shocked by the incident.

"I've heard of this happening 'over the hill', but not here, and it could end up being very costly for the farmer."

She said the farmer could be charged for the whole tanker of milk.

"His contaminated milk would have gone into a milk tanker containing milk from other farms in the area and if it contained penicillin it would have tainted the whole lot."

Westland Milk Products would be able to work out which farm the contaminated milk was from because samples were taken from each farm at every milk collection.

"It's a disgusting thing to do and I hope the culprit is caught and the police come down hard on whoever did it."

In other cases she had heard of - "which are few and far between" - the offender only needed to squirt penicillin into the milk fat to contaminate the batch. Less than a syringe full was enough to ruin a tanker full.

In 2005, a 30-year-old Israeli man was arrested for allegedly contaminating 40,000 litres of milk on a mid Canterbury dairy farm.

The man, in New Zealand on a work permit, was arrested and charged with contaminating food, crops, water or other product intended for human consumption after antibiotics were detected in a sample taken from the milk silo on the property.

That was the first time anyone had been charged with such an offence, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years' jail.