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Ranchers.net

USDA To Clarify Country-Of-Origin Labeling For U.S. Meat

Monday, Sept. 22, 2008

by Jerry Hagstrom

CongressDailyPM / NationalJournal



The Agriculture Department will require packers to label beef from cattle born, raised and slaughtered in the United States as U.S. beef rather than follow a packers' plan that would label all beef coming from the United States, Canada and Mexico as North American, according to Agriculture Secretary Schafer. This ruling is significant because most of the 2008 farm bill goes into effect Oct. 1, including a provision requiring country-of-origin labeling for red meat. The provision includes categories for U.S. meat, foreign meat and meat of mixed origin that labeling advocates and packers had agreed on.



Some packers have said recently that they intend to label all beef coming from the United States, Canada and Mexico as of North American origin -- prompting some concerns from some farm and ranch leaders and lawmakers. But Schafer told the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture in Bismarck, N.D., Friday that USDA would not allow the North American label for U.S. beef. Such mixed labeling "was not the intent of the law, [and] not the intent of all of you when you started this many years ago," Schafer told the group, as quoted in the Grand Forks Herald. Schafer acknowledged the rule does contain a provision allowing the North American label so that packers who do not have enough U.S. cattle for a full day's processing can finish with cattle from another country. Citing that language, some packers had said they were going to label all the beef as mixed. "We don't think that's the original intent of the law. We think we have found a way to deal with that. Oct. 1 we'll find out," Schafer said. Schafer noted that as governor of North Dakota he had signed the nation's first meat country-of-origin labeling law. A USDA spokesman today confirmed Schafer's statements.



North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson, the outgoing president of NASDA, said he was surprised and impressed by Schafer's defense of the U.S. label. The packers' initiative "was something that ... seemed to have been OK'd within USDA in some fashion. That is not at all the message that [Schafer] sent to us," said Johnson. "He was saying he supports the country of origin labeling law. He wants to be clear that if it is all U.S. born, raised, slaughtered, [the meat] should have a U.S. label on it."



National Farmers Union President Tom Buis, who met with Schafer Thursday, said Schafer had been much less enthusiastic about U.S. labeling in that meeting than his remarks indicated on Friday. "The devil is in the details," said Buis. "[USDA's] original rule allowed this and I hope they can change it. But [if] they can't, we stand ready to introduce legislation to make the packers live up to the intent of the law." Buis also said USDA should not try to finalize the rule until a six-month trial period is complete. Meanwhile, Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin said in an e-mail Friday that USDA seemed to be "taking liberty with their interpretation" of country-of-origin labeling, which he said goes against the spirit of the law and the negotiated settlement between producer and packing industry representatives. "After all the debate on this issue, producers and consumers deserve a common sense rule that allows U.S. product to be labeled as intended," said Harkin.



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