Posted on 11/17/2004 12:37:51 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
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, whose main champion two years ago was Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
"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 defeating for re-election Nov. 2. Daschle indicated through a spokesman this week that he probably will not fight the repeal.
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.
There are 4.5 million cattle and 2.9 million hogs in Missouri; Kansas has 6.65 million cattle and about 1.5 million hogs.
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.
I find it strange that it's *that* expensive to put a few words on the label saying "Made in Spain" or whatnot. And tho' it's not really important, I like seeing where my food comes from.
My guess is there's something really fishy about this plan (even though it doesn't cover fish). Maybe they want to label a can of chili to display the origin of each and every ingredient? Nah, they wouldn't dream of doing anything THAT stupid.
Other countries have fewer regulations, lower land costs, fewer taxes. The only way sometimes for our guys to compete is to label that the origin of the food product is the U.S. Some of us prefer US produced foods because of our safety standards and general safety of the food supply. That food is produced in America is a value-added feature for a product. If you take it away, our guys cannot compete on price alone because of the above mentioned government restrictions that harm our competitiveness.
Good question. How does a change in the typeset on the labels add up to hundreds of millions or billions of dollars a year?
If Bush doesn't want it, then it probably hurts Mexico.
bump!
That's the point. Also the cost of verifying that your sources identified their sources correctly can be expensive.
On the other hand, most of the stuff I buy does say where it comes from. Most contries like to brag. In the US, many items are labeled by state.
How do you label things like fresh vegetables? Put them in plastic wrap with a label?
I agree but, it had better be indelible ink. Otherwise, stickers on fruits, vegetables, and meat packaging might develop a tendency to "come off."
Frankly, I'd think domestic producers would WANT to put COO labels on their products (voluntarily, of course). I wouldn't be surprised if there's some FDA or Ag. Dept. rule prohibiting it.
What are we missing here?
I emailed Rep. Chip Pickering, explaining my concerns, and directing him to look at this thread.
LOL, I think you're probably on to something with that one.
Most of the vegetables I buy in the grocery store already have some kind of a little sticker on it, I suppose to identify to the cashier which variety of vegetable I'm buying (the $3 tomato, as opposed to the $5 one).
Of course, stickers can fall off. But, I think they've engineered them so that they can only stick to something once.
BINGO!!!!!!!!
That Jim, was my first reaction - thank you for saying it so well.
You are right. It is the phyto-sanitation clause in the Agriculture section of NAFTA. This law allows green onions irrigated with sewage in Mexico to be shipped to restaurants like Chi-Chi's in Pennsylvania.
Mexico suffered no harm in this incident. Here, people died and a restaurant chain went out of business. They can't sue because its perfectly legal to ship produce grown this way out of countries like Mexico because they are protected by NAFTA.
If there were no labeling, how would the FDA track down the source of contamination? It would be a lot harder, and much harder to keep our food supply safe.
I just don't get it. We can't buy drugs from outside of the country because they may not be safe,but everything else we put into our stomach they don't care about.
I haven't bought a tomato from Mexico in years because of the conditions they are grown in. Now what am I going to do?
Fight back. You are a sovereign citizen of this country and you can demand that your government desist from these attempts to undermine our food supply safety and our freedom of choice.
I can't see a good political reason why they'd pursue this now. People generally like truth in labeling laws, and it's a legitimate exercise of Congressional authority under the commerce clause to require them. I'll withhold jumping to any conclusions, but my guess is that the explanation against national origin labels is likely to be so esoteric that it will make the GOP look like ridiculous big business tools to oppose them.
Let's say you are a producer of tomato sauce. You buy some tomatoes from California and some from Mexico. Now you need to track where each crate of Mexico tomatoes end up. You need to figure out at what percent by volume each batch of tomato sauce comes from, and by law how each has to be labeled.
Let's say you are a rancher in Wyoming. You go to cattle auctions all over and now, because your meat packer requires it, you have to keep track of where your cattle was born and you have to figure out how to label it. (300lb heifer bought in Canada, sold to packer at 600lb. 50% Canada/50% U.S?)
Strawberry ice cream. Milk from the U.S., Strawberries from Bazil, sugar from the DR. How do you label your Ice Cream?
These are a few examples I could quickly think of that can complicate the whole issue quickly.
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