Published Monday September 22, 2008
Single meat label, multiple countries
BY LESLIE REED
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU
LINCOLN — Would you buy a New York strip steak labeled as a product of the U.S. and Canada and Mexico?
After years of wrangling to get country-of-origin labels on meat and other agricultural products, several U.S. farm groups now worry that U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations will sabotage their efforts.
In the works for more than six years, the labeling requirement takes effect Sept. 30. The farm groups had hoped that it would steer consumers toward purchasing meat from animals born, raised and slaughtered in the United States.
Instead, the groups are hearing that several major meatpackers plan to take advantage of a USDA regulation that allows them to label their steaks and roasts as products of multiple countries — even if the slaughtered animals spent their entire lives in the United States.
That would defeat the purpose of labeling, said John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union. "We're trying to get rid of the mystery meat here."
Meatpackers say they're trying to comply with the law without unduly increasing costs to consumers.
"We fully intend to abide by the new labeling rules, while also making sure we continue to meet the wishes of our customers," said Gary Mickelson, a spokesman for Tyson Foods, which intends to list multiple countries of origin on its cuts of beef and pork, but not on its chicken.
All of Tyson's chickens are domestically produced and will be labeled as U.S. chicken. Most of its hogs and cows, but not all, are born and raised in the United States.
"Rather than go to the significant added expense of segregating livestock and finished product, we believe our customers and consumers will be best-served if we simply label most of our affected retail products as coming from multiple countries of origin," Mickelson said.
The USDA regulations are intended to give meatpackers flexibility in managing the costs of complying with the new regulations, said Mark Dopp, senior vice president of regulatory affairs and general counsel for the American Meat Institute in Washington, D.C.
Dopp responded to phone messages left last week with several meatpacking companies.
In packinghouses where thousands of animals are slaughtered each day, some animals have never been outside the United States; others were born in Canada or Mexico but were fattened in a U.S. feedlot; and still others were imported to be slaughtered. The USDA estimates that up to 2.5 million cattle and 10 million hogs slaughtered by the U.S. meat industry each year originated in Canada or Mexico.
"Essentially," Dopp said, "the regulation allows companies to use the same label day in, day out, without having to change it."
The Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation has joined the National Farmers Union, the U.S. Cattlemen's Association and R-CALF USA in objecting to the USDA policy.
"If packers use the 'multiple country' designation unnecessarily, it will give consumers a false perception that there is little to no beef available to them that is entirely produced and processed in this country," said Nebraska Farm Bureau President Keith Olsen.
The farm groups have conceded that ground meat — which is derived from multiple animals — could be labeled with multiple countries of origin. But they say the packinghouses ought to be able to keep track of the origins of the better cuts of meat.
The Farm Bureau believes that consumers are willing to pay a premium for beef produced entirely in the United States, much like they're willing to pay extra for Angus beef or organic beef, said Rob Robertson, government liaison for the Nebraska group.
Dopp strongly disagreed: "We've seen no evidence that consumers are willing to pay more for beef or pork that's a product of the U.S."
National Farmers Union President Tom Buis has lambasted the USDA regulation, saying it violated "good-faith" negotiations between farm groups and food processors.
"USDA has created a loophole big enough to drive a truck through," Buis said, "violating the spirit, letter and intent of the law and deceiving consumers who have consistently shown support for buying U.S. products."
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