Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] Labels telling meat origin may be killed

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Labels telling meat origin may be killed
  • Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 06:56:06 -0700

http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=98086

Labels telling meat origin may be killed
11/18/2004

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Telling consumers where their meat, fruit and vegetables
came from seemed such a good idea to U.S. ranchers and farmers in
competition with imports that Congress two years ago ordered the food
industry to do it. But meatpackers and food processors fought the law from
the start, and newly emboldened Republicans now plan to repeal it before
Thanksgiving.

As part of the 2002 farm bill, country-of-origin labeling was supposed to
have gone into effect this fall. Congress last year postponed it until
2006. Now, House Republicans are trying to wipe it off the books as part of
a spending bill they plan to finish this month.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said he expected the Senate to agree
to repealing the measure.

"I can't find any real opposition to doing exactly what we want to do
here," Blunt said.

President Bush never supported mandatory labeling. Chances for repealing
the law improved when Daschle, still his party's leader in the Senate, was
defeated for re-election Nov. 2.

"For Republicans to deny Americans the opportunity to 'buy American' at the
grocery store is anti-consumer, anti-farmer and anti-rancher," Daschle said
Wednesday.

He and other Western senators were making an effort to keep repeal of the
labeling law out of the wide-ranging spending bill Congress plans to pass
before it leaves. Democrats acknowledged there was not much of an appetite
to wage a battle over it.

Those who want the repeal say the labeling system is so expensive that it
far outweighs any benefit to consumers. The Agriculture Department has
estimated the cost could range from hundreds of millions to billions of
dollars in the first year alone.

"Everybody realized it was going to cost a lot of money, and ranchers were
going to have to bear most of that," said Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., chairman
of a Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry subcommittee on the issue.

Food processors and other opponents of mandatory labeling say they are
amenable to voluntary labels.

Grocery Manufacturers Association spokeswoman Stephanie Childs cited the
government's voluntary standards for labeling organic food and said,
"That's the sort of thing we should be looking toward."

Supporters of the labeling requirement says opponents want the repeal so
producers will not have to spend money getting ready to follow the law. The
House Agriculture Committee approved legislation this year to substitute a
voluntary system for the current law.

The issue divides cattlemen and other livestock producers. Many of the
bigger livestock and feedlot operations, as well as food processors, do not
want mandatory labeling.

Producers in favor of mandatory labels believe consumers will prefer
U.S.-grown food over foreign imports. The law requires companies to put
country-of-origin labels on meat, vegetables and fruit.

"We really feel that country-of-origin labeling is one of the key things we
need to keep ourselves competitive in that market. I understand the
trade-offs," said Doran Junek, a rancher in Brewster, Kan. Junek also is
executive director of the Kansas Cattlemen's Association, an affiliate of
R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America.

Consumer groups say the issue is whether buyers have a right to know where
their food came from.

"When nutrition labeling was suggested by advocates 25 years ago, the
industry kept saying, 'Oh, we can't do that,"' said Carol Tucker Foreman,
director of food policy for the Consumer Federation of America. "Look,
they've done it. They love it. Consumers use it."

The wrangling does not affect fish because Congress did not include fish
last year when it delayed the mandatory labeling. Fresh and frozen fish
will be required to carry labels beginning in April.

------

On the Net:

Coalition against mandatory labeling: http://www.countryoforiginlabel.org/

Consumer Federation of America: http://www.consumerfed.org

Agriculture Department: http://www.usda.gov

Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov







  • [Livingontheland] Labels telling meat origin may be killed, Tradingpost, 11/19/2004

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page