Congress Delays COOL Behind Closed Doors Again

[Tommy]

Congress Delays COOL Behind Closed Doors Again

WASHINGTON (October 27, 2005) – A key Congressional conference committee adopted an additional two year delay of the implementation of mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) for all products except seafood. A majority of the conferees have signed off on the House and Senate report, setting up a final passage vote in both houses in the near future.

The delay is a repeat of history, when the same action occurred in 2003. On both of these occasions there was no public debate or vote, and the decision was made behind closed doors.

"It is a travesty that U.S. producers and consumers' interests are losing out to pressure from the retailers, packers and processors, who all have aggressively fought this law since its inception," NFU President Dave Frederickson said.

"Once again a deal has been struck behind closed doors by the majority leadership of the committees with no recourse for individual members of Congress except for an up-or-down vote on the overall agriculture spending measure," Frederickson said.

Mandatory COOL was adopted by Congress in 2002, and its implementation for everything but seafood has been delayed.

"I find it odd that it is taking this country longer to put a label on its food than to put a man on the moon," Frederickson added.

 

[STAFF]

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Breaking News on Food Processing & Packaging - Europe

Internet Databank Set Up for Animal Traceability
By Ahmed ELAmin

25/10/2005 - Food processors will now be able to tell where their meat supplies originated just by scanning the ears of the livestock and plugging a number into an Internet data bank.

The system speeds up the process of tracing the history of an animal. The free system has been set up by ScoringAg as part of the company's expansion of its online tracking and traceability system for food supply chains.

The system is part of the new push to meet US regulations covering traceability, or record keeping. The EU and the US have adopted similar rules that require food companies to keep records of the operator immediately before them in the supply chain and the operator immediately after them as required by FDA.

With ScoringAg's system, processors will now be able to scan the animals radio frequency identification (RFID) tag or its barcode tag and put the number into the company's search page at www.ScoringAg.com. The number can also be seen visually and entered manually.

Instead of waiting for hours or days, the ScoringAg system delivers the information in a matter of seconds. The Public Records pages also show a photo of the animal if taken, giving an additional means besides other tags,boluses, or brands of animal ID when ear tags are lost or stolen, and only unique identifying characteristics can give positive ID for the animal.


The site will output the public information available for the animal such as, breed, other ID tag data, name, date of birth, sex, brand, tattoo, color, and dam and sire names.

For paid subscribers to the service, ScoringAg will also provide the animal's traceback history from origin to current status is displayed by unique premises ID (PIDC), activity name, and activity date and time. The numbers can also be put into the site using a cell phone.

www.ScoringAg.com specialises in providing RFID or barcodes for traceup and traceback systems for livestock, from birth through the packing plants and on to the consumer. The company's system also tracks transport containers, perishable meats and other food products.

The ScoringAg system provides RFID traceback in real time through a secure online databank that pinpoints the location of each handler in the food chain. The system can also work with barcodes. Companies will have unique accounts through which they will be able to access their product specific data.

Location is identified through a unique PIDC number, a mapping technology developed by ScoringSystem. PIDC records activities and actions performed on the animals, fish, or crops at each location – even in the middle of a packing plant, or on board a factory ship, or in the middle of a farmer's field, all the way to the retailer and consumer.

ScoringSystem's PIDC traceability system uses the ISO standard for location and property identification. However ScoringSystem has developed a more comprehensive system to define all land and sea locations globally, including those areas that are not recognised or covered by the ISO standard, the UN and other international organisations.

"Without efficient, effective data collection system and a Web-based data management system, tagging livestock and other agriculture items cannot provide true animal traceback and traceup – even when a local, resident software system and database is used," ScoringSystem stated in a press release. "A Web-based system makes it possible for records to move with the individual product, which cuts the time required for source verification to just seconds."

 

[mrj]

With a little luck, and a serious reality check, the market place and M-ID will make that flawed COOL law obsolete.

MRJ

 

[PORKER]

MRJ ,If you check out the 4-H FFA demo on the scoringag.com site you will see that all products and or animals have a code that always tells the country of origin automaticaly. Its called PIDC and it runs in the background along side the premises code.So anybody that uses the Ag database has COOL.

 

[Tommy]

mj...With a little luck, and a serious reality check, the market place and M-ID will make that flawed COOL law obsolete.


The NCBA run M-ID? I thought the NCBA was against Mandatory I D.

 

[Tommy]

This latest effort to kill COOL was led by U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Texas), who has received more than $167,000 from COOL opponents in the past three election cycles, making him their top beneficiary. The Food Marketing Institute, which represents the grocery industry, and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which represents the meat industry, have been the biggest opponents of mandatory COOL. It is apparent that our elected lawmakers' main concern is to protect industry, not consumers.

 

[PORKER]

The biggest opponents of mandatory COOL don't relize that it is apparent that our elected lawmakers' main concern is to protect industry, not consumers.******A ten year forecasts, case studies and technology
evaluations provide a complete analysis on the topic in this 250 page market
intelligence report researched globally by experts.
Traceability has become a buzzword in the food industry. Consumer demands
for higher-quality foods and more variety have never been greater. Spurred on
by recent food scares around the world, such as mad cow disease and
bioterrorism fears, governments are forcing the adoption of food traceability systems.
Everyone from producer to retailer will be affected by food traceability.
This state-of-the-art review deals with the key topics of traceability -
technology, law, forecasts and case studies.
A must read for anyone involved in the food industry.

Although tens of millions of RFID tags have been applied to livestock and
food and millions of biometric procedures have been carried out, there is no analysis of the global situation and the lessons of success and failure. The potential for RFID tagging of livestock is billions yearly and the potential
for radio tagging of food is in trillions a year, but what are the forecasts
for such tagging at animal, pallet/case and item level for the next ten
years? Which countries are in the lead and where will the next wave of
technologies, laws and mandates be applied? These and other vital questions
are answered for the first time in this major new report.
Written by Emma Napier, a practicing veterinarian, and Dr Peter Harrop,
and backed by technical experts located across the world, this report
analyses what is going on from fish to cattle, from Botswana to Japan and
Canada. It identifies the most impressive suppliers and putative suppliers,
the new technologies, the market drivers and much more.
This industry is on the move in a major way. It includes market pull,
with McDonald's the world's largest outlet for cooked meat recently mandating
full traceability from suppliers and Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer,
mandating RFID on all incoming pallets and cases. This is a prelude to
tagging everything. It has legal push with the new European Union legislation
in 2005 demanding "one up one down" traceability and the US Homeland Security
legislation demanding unprecedented levels of traceability. China and Japan
are also in the lead, and they have their own concerns. For example, Japan is
convicting criminals that pass off inferior foreign fish as coming from
Japanese waters.
Billion dollar businesses will be created as a consequence - much the
same as happened with barcodes years ago.
By 2015 900 billion food items could be RFID tagged, and 824 million
livestock will have more sophisticated, more expensive tags on or in them.
However, new technologies, now being developed, will be needed for the food
items. The livestock figure could easily be doubled if chickens are tagged,
something of vital interest to the Government of Thailand, which ships 400
million chicken carcasses yearly and could have its whole industry wiped out
by the new, virulent avian flu, but with www.scoringag.com 's new Rapid Response System it brings a better day with it's technology to contain diesease's anywhere in real time.

 

[mrj]

MRJ ,If you check out the 4-H FFA demo on the scoringag.com site you will see that all products and or animals have a code that always tells the country of origin automaticaly. Its called PIDC and it runs in the background along side the premises code.So anybody that uses the Ag database has COOL.

Porker, that is the useable and sensible form of market driven ID we need. It is definitely NOT the flawed COOL law that says we ONLY need to mark imported meat.

I believe we need to ID beef produced in the USA, too. If there is any problem requiring a tracing of the beef, with the vast majority of beef consumed here also being produced in the USA, no ID on domestic beef would make tracing it too slow a process.

MRJ

 

[Econ101]

MRJ ,If you check out the 4-H FFA demo on the scoringag.com site you will see that all products and or animals have a code that always tells the country of origin automaticaly. Its called PIDC and it runs in the background along side the premises code.So anybody that uses the Ag database has COOL.

Porker, that is the useable and sensible form of market driven ID we need. It is definitely NOT the flawed COOL law that says we ONLY need to mark imported meat.

I believe we need to ID beef produced in the USA, too. If there is any problem requiring a tracing of the beef, with the vast majority of beef consumed here also being produced in the USA, no ID on domestic beef would make tracing it too slow a process.

MRJ

MRJ, Why can't we have both? I don't believe you will find a big difference on the consumer end between Canadian and U.S. beef consumption in the U.S. unless the differences in Canada quality controls as a whole are questioned. The USDA needs someone to compete with when it comes to the issues of beef safety and grading instead of making policies that push the industries in both countries into consolidation and less competition for the producer's cattle.

 

[PORKER]

The Biggest Problem I see is that none of the local databases by goverments every can be checked when the beef leaves the country . At least Japanese consumer can see the beef data when they use the ScoringAg database like the Europeans do too.

Until the US. and Canada use ScoringAg Nothing will be Exported without Traceback back to the Country of Origin as ALot of other countrys use (SSI )them for Proof and source of verification.

 

[PORKER]

US meat labelling faces delay
US meat labelling faces delay

Friday, 28/10/2005

Mandatory country-of-origin labelling for meat sales in the United States is now likely to be delayed for another two years.

****The Australian beef industry opposes the changes because of the new system's expense.****

US House and Senate lawmakers agreed in closed-door negotiations to extend next year's September 30 deadline to require country-of-origin meat labelling.

Leading Senate Democrat on agriculture, Tom Harkin, opposed the move.

"That was in our farm bill. It was supposed to be effective on September 30th of next year. Now, they want to delay it until 2008," he said.

Voluntary labelling bills backed by US processors and retailers have been introduced in the Congress.

*****Australia's beef industry argues expensive and difficult mandatory labelling would discourage the US food industry from using Australian product. *****

 

[Tam]

Gee I thought Haymaker was gloating the other day about M'COOL" being one of R-CALFs great achievements. Kind of looks like your were gloating a bit to soon Haymaker. :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Gee I thought Haymaker was gloating the other day about M'COOL" being one of R-CALFs great achievements. Kind of looks like your were gloating a bit to soon Haymaker. :wink:

And Tam gloats because she can continue to sell her beef on the shirttails and cut in on the profits of the US producer.......Too bad people have no knowledge that they have eaten Canadian beef and it has to be labeled with the USDA label to get it to sell.....

But you being an ex-American, it shouldn't bother you if Canada has no pride in its country and allows any country that wants to mislabel the product- as long as you are profiting........

 

[HAY MAKER]

Gee I thought Haymaker was gloating the other day about M'COOL" being one of R-CALFs great achievements. Kind of looks like your were gloating a bit to soon Haymaker. :wink:

I would'nt say I was gloating,I have learned long ago these battles are fought long and hard,dont surprise me about M COOL,and it dont surprise me that you are gloating now. I been reading your posts,you are as sorry as they come ,all the cattle man wants is fairness,and you and your kind deprive him of this,I was wrong about you................good luck

 

[Tam]

Gee I thought Haymaker was gloating the other day about M'COOL" being one of R-CALFs great achievements. Kind of looks like your were gloating a bit to soon Haymaker. :wink:

And Tam gloats because she can continue to sell her beef on the shirttails and cut in on the profits of the US producer.......Too bad people have no knowledge that they have eaten Canadian beef and it has to be labeled with the USDA label to get it to sell.....

But you being an ex-American, it shouldn't bother you if Canada has no pride in its country and allows any country that wants to mislabel the product- as long as you are profiting........

The old shirttail thing again Oldtimer what would the US do without our beef? What would the price of beef in the meat counter be if you weren't getting supplimented by Canada.? Where will you get the beef to supply your export markets if you don't have enough to supply your domestic needs at a price anybody can afford? Oh yea you would just import from countries like Brazil and Mexico. Say Oldtimer isn't there a thread on here about Brazil having a Foot and Mouth problem. And didn't Haymaker and a few others have bad things to say about Mexican beef. Shirttails :roll: :roll: :roll:

 

[Tam]

Gee I thought Haymaker was gloating the other day about M'COOL" being one of R-CALFs great achievements. Kind of looks like your were gloating a bit to soon Haymaker. :wink:

I would'nt say I was gloating,I have learned long ago these battles are fought long and hard,dont surprise me about M COOL,and it dont surprise me that you are gloating now. I been reading your posts,you are as sorry as they come ,all the cattle man wants is fairness,and you and your kind deprive him of this,I was wrong about you................good luck

Not gloating Haymaker just teasing and I thought you had a sense of humor but I guess it doesn't apply when it comes to R-CALFs achievements. :wink:


You were wrong about me :cry2: Do I care that you can't handle a bit of truth. Am I surprized that after all the bright lights R-CALF used on you you can't see the truth when someone tries to show it to you, No to both.
I want a fair chance too but I also realize that we have to deal with the truth and reality, which means working with every sector of the industry to make things work smoother. Blaming the packers for all our woes is not going to fix the problem. They are, as I have said before, a neccesary evil and we can't survive without them. But if you have a plan of how the cattlemen can survive without them bring it to the board and let's see what you got. :?

 

[Econ101]

Gee I thought Haymaker was gloating the other day about M'COOL" being one of R-CALFs great achievements. Kind of looks like your were gloating a bit to soon Haymaker. :wink:

I would'nt say I was gloating,I have learned long ago these battles are fought long and hard,dont surprise me about M COOL,and it dont surprise me that you are gloating now. I been reading your posts,you are as sorry as they come ,all the cattle man wants is fairness,and you and your kind deprive him of this,I was wrong about you................good luck

Not gloating Haymaker just teasing and I thought you had a sense of humor but I guess it doesn't apply when it comes to R-CALFs achievements. :wink:


You were wrong about me :cry2: Do I care that you can't handle a bit of truth. Am I surprized that after all the bright lights R-CALF used on you you can't see the truth when someone tries to show it to you, No to both.
I want a fair chance too but I also realize that we have to deal with the truth and reality, which means working with every sector of the industry to make things work smoother. Blaming the packers for all our woes is not going to fix the problem. They are, as I have said before, a neccesary evil and we can't survive without them. But if you have a plan of how the cattlemen can survive without them bring it to the board and let's see what you got. :?

Tam, holding packers accountable when they do wrong is in your the cattleman's and the public's best interests. Giving any public money to industry dominating players is not. Packers are not a necessary evil. They could just be good, honest and fair businessmen. They showed the Canadian cattleman how fair they were with the BSE closing and the spread in boxed beef that they pocketed and used to buy more competiters. Like I say, keep pouring that Canadian tax money into rich american's pockets. You will keep getting the kind of trade deals you have in lumber and keep getting the shaft. Some of us don't believe the world should work that way. Your positions are clear where you stand.

 

[HAY MAKER]

Alright Miss Tam,if you were teasing,then I apologize,I dont think you will admitt this,but I bet you know,without an org. like R CALF keeping these packers/usda/ncba, in the spot lite,and fighting for fairness,it would'nt take some street wise bean counter one day to come up with some BS story about how the operating costs have sky rocketed and the cost of fuel,wages etc...........so fat cattle are $56,take it or leave it,and since the price of fat cattle drives the markets your calves arent worth much.....................good luck

 

[Tam]

Alright Miss Tam,if you were teasing,then I apologize,I dont think you will admitt this,but I bet you know,without an org. like R CALF keeping these packers/usda/ncba, in the spot lite,and fighting for fairness,it would'nt take some street wise bean counter one day to come up with some BS story about how the operating costs have sky rocketed and the cost of fuel,wages etc...........so fat cattle are $56,take it or leave it,and since the price of fat cattle drives the markets your calves arent worth much.....................good luck

If R-CALF had not been organized to stop beef trade with Canada would it have been organized at all? :wink:
Haymaker do you think it is fair to stop import cattle trade when it costs two sectors of the whole beef industry billions just so you can keep a monopoly on the cattle supply? I thought R-CALF hated the Packers having a capitive supply of cattle but if the packers can't access cattle from anywhere else doesn't the give the US producers a capitive market for their supply.

 

[Econ101]

Alright Miss Tam,if you were teasing,then I apologize,I dont think you will admitt this,but I bet you know,without an org. like R CALF keeping these packers/usda/ncba, in the spot lite,and fighting for fairness,it would'nt take some street wise bean counter one day to come up with some BS story about how the operating costs have sky rocketed and the cost of fuel,wages etc...........so fat cattle are $56,take it or leave it,and since the price of fat cattle drives the markets your calves arent worth much.....................good luck

If R-CALF had not been organized to stop beef trade with Canada would it have been organized at all? :wink:
Haymaker do you think it is fair to stop import cattle trade when it costs two sectors of the whole beef industry billions just so you can keep a monopoly on the cattle supply? I thought R-CALF hated the Packers having a capitive supply of cattle but if the packers can't access cattle from anywhere else doesn't the give the US producers a capitive market for their supply.

Tam, I know you must be speaking out of desperation on this post. The pain of producers in Canada is heard. BSE was a packer made problem, however, and it is an issue packers are using through the USDA.

You can condemn r-calf and everyone else but if the issues regarding concentration are not solved you will still be in the same cement boat with a hole in it. U.S. cattlemen do not hate Canadian cattlemen, except to the extent that Canadian cattlemen are not getting the laws needed to stop the abuses of market power in the industry. It is causing a big rift.

If you would spend just half of your time on this issue instead of throwing your hands up in the air, you would probably get a lot more sympathy to your positions. If Canadian cattlemen do not want to face these issues then they will always be looked down upon by r-calfers and politically active cattlemen in the U.S. Can you find some common interests? I would much rather have r-calf be a supporter of Canadian proposals to correct the current abuses than fight other producers. The problem is that the packers have you split. Think about how the split was made and who made it. You don't need to fight your closest kin when the big bad wolf is blowing down your house. Your closest kin aint goin to help you if you are not doing a little fighting yourself.