Posted on 05/18/2007 6:54:29 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
With the recent problems involving melamine-contaminated food products imported from China, the issue of country-of-origin labeling has resurfaced. Congress passed a law in 2002 which would require imported meat, produce, peanuts and seafood to have labeling to indicate from what country the product comes. However, full implementation of the law has been delayed due to cost concerns.
Eighteenth District Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio, acknowledged the difficulties of the current situation in a written statement on Friday.
“Country of origin labeling is a contentious issue in agriculture,” Space said. “I believe that consumers need to be informed when they’re purchasing foreign meat, which can be inferior in quality to domestic meat. However, I am concerned that the implementation of the program next year may be overly burdensome on domestic producers. As a member of the House Agriculture Committee, I believe we need to make sure that the program is practical and workable for livestock producers when it is implemented next year.”
Dan Lamb, store manager of the Fredericktown Market, said that so far, compliance with seafood labeling and tracking hasn’t been a major problem.
“A lot of this stuff comes with labeling on it,” Lamb said. “We keep a catalog of what comes from what supplier so we can track it back if there’s a problem or a customer complaint.”
He said he hasn’t found the burden onerous thus far, but he’s uncertain what fuller implementation might bring.
“For right now, it isn’t bad,” Lamb said, “but who knows what things may be like down the road?”
Ohio Farmers Union president Joe Logan testified to the Ohio Senate Agriculture Committee last week about COOL.
“The program will allow domestic farmers to differentiate and market their American-raised product from lower-quality imports,” Logan said. “Consumers want the ability to distinguish where the food they purchase comes from for both quality and safety’s sake.”
Keith Bolin, president of the American Corn Growers Association, called for implementation of COOL along with a full investigation into the melamine disaster.
“There must be accountability and consequences,” said Bolin, a hog and corn farmer from Illinois. “COOL was passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in 2002, but the law has yet to be implemented. If other countries are feeding unsafe ingredients to their livestock, U.S. consumers should be provided the information in order to decide what they feed their families.”
A group that runs the Web site www.countryoforiginlabel.org opposes COOL because of the additional costs that would be incurred by processors and retailers in labeling food and creating track-back systems for accountability. The site states that standing agreements with U.S. trade partners would require labeling and tracking on equivalent domestic products. They cite a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture which indicates that labeling and tracking will add an additional $1 billion to $2 billion in costs annually to the industry. The Web site does not identify who funds it.
The pro-labeling Web site www.americansforlabeling.org cites a report from R-CALF (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund) which criticizes the USDA figures, which R-CALF said ignores the fact that many United States packing plants and virtually all U.S. retailers already have sophisticated labeling and tracking systems in place. R-CALF also states that few producers make products subject only to COOL. Many producers make a range of agricultural products, some of which will be unaffected by COOL. The USDA study applied estimates to all products each producer makes. The Web site also points out that the government’s own General Accounting Office has criticized the USDA study as inaccurate.
A more recent study by the University of Florida claims that implementation costs would be 80 percent less than the USDA figure. The pro-labeling Web site lists many farming and agricultural organizations as its members and supporters, including the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, the Ohio Fruit Growers Society, the Vegetable and Potato Growers Association of Ohio and the Ohio Farmers Union.
The COOL issue has arisen because of recent problems with imported food products from China. A report from the Associated Press cited a sampling of Chinese projects detained by the Food and Drug Administration in recent months: Frozen catfish tainted with illegal veterinary drugs, fresh ginger polluted with pesticides, melon seeds contaminated with a cancer-causing toxin and filthy dried dates. The report adds that the FDA only has the resources to inspect about 1.3 percent of imported food annually.
Farmers were trying to get country of origin way back in the 70’s, obviously without success.
Whole Foods always lists the country of origin, and they ALWAYS have wild caught shrimp from the US side of the Gulf too.
Our family was just talking about this tonight.
NOOOOOO Chineezz Fud !!!
I don’t understand the resistance to COOL...I lived in Chile for 5-years and I could go into any large chain supermarket and choose beef from Chile, (not highly sought after) Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay or the USA.
It isn’t the cow-calf producer that’s against it; it is the big US packers.
I would love to see this happen.
Any U.S meat producer/retailer ought to see the potential marketing goldmine of self-labeling meat “Grown in USA”.
For crying out loud, why does it take the government to do it? Pretty soon everyone is on the bandwagon, and any meat not so labelled is suspect by default.
Mrs V (who happily eats only meat grown within a few miles from home)
Exactly. No gov't agency told me to put a "Made in the USA" and flag sticker on the machines my company builds.
Well God bless you for making them here and for being proud of it!
I would love to see this spill over to become a grass-roots rejection of Chinese made crap in general.
Mrs V
become a grass-roots rejection of Chinese made crap in general.
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I am all for it.
It sure would make it easier to boycott Chinese goods.
OH...could that be the reason not to implement it?
sarcasm/off
The Country Of Origin Labeling act (COOL) has been postponed (again) till 2008. This is one law that needs to be passed NOW!
Motts apple juice has listed it’s concentrate as coming from the US, Argentina and China. I certainly wouldn’t buy any food from China at this point in time and believe that the COOL act (passed 5 years ago!) would go a long way to helping consumers decide for themselves which products from which countries they feel safe in eating.
Why is everyone so hot to expand the FDA? Take the gloves off of COOL and let the consumers themselves enforce it!
Notes:
As part of the FY2006 Agriculture Appropriations law, Congress agreed to delay enforcement of the current mandatory country of origin labeling law an additional two years, to September 30, 2008.
What is Country of Origin Labeling. Included in 2002 Farm Bill (PL 107-171)
bump
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