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.
dammit, I can never get the tags to work. here: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Features/farmbill/analysis/cool.htm
We want to know what we are eating,not wearing,or driving,or sitting on etc.,just what we are eating.
While watching TV a couple of years ago, they showed a man in some third-world country doing something with strawberries. The man was rather filthy and so was the area he was working in. For a while I gave up eating strawberries, which I love. Then my husband told me to read the labels on the packaged strawberries to see where they were made. Yes, I want to know where my food is coming from.
There are multiple reasons to know the origin of the food I eat. For one, I will not allow particularly males and young females to eat American meat that is "growth hormoned" and "anti-bioticed". That is dangerous to their health and ability to reproduce.
I do not eat European meat or dairy because of the incidence of a variety of risks from the varied diseases to which all the herds are subject.
Certain foreign countries use human feces or sewage for fertilization. I do not eat anything from those environs because we do not need the resulting sickness or death.
Pesticides can largely be overcome in different ways, some however are not worth it.
If the Republicans want to compromise the food chain and push the vaccines (mix DNA) into the population it is time to fight them because that is too basic a need to ignore. It can result in as many dead and sick and dying as the abortion problem (although I admit that they will successfully cover the stats on it).
Uhhh this makes no sense? What is the motivation for not telling us where our food comes from?
Are you sure about this? What if the famous "Loisiana Hot Sauce" had to label their hot sauce with a label that told you that a certain percentage of their sauce was actually made from peppers from the Mediterranean area and not New Iberia?
Muleteam1
Chickens-Big French Chickens. They don't have to be caught to be slaughtered-they surrender and go willingly.
its an attack on our freedom and sovereignty because farm/ranch products are a major part of our economy and if that goes the way of cheap imports, we're sunk......
Vietnamese Catfish is GOOOD!!
So exactly what makes this labeling system so expensive? Are they using gold plated tags?
Get used to it - it's going to be a LONG 4 years. Personally, I think *everything* should be labelled with country of origin. RE: food, we also have a right to know if food is made from genetically engineered or "fake" ingredients.
Practically every vegetable now comes with a little sticker on it (very annoying.) If there's no sticker, then put it on the sign above the bin, next to the price.
It isn't rocket science; it's another payback from President Bush to the Mexicans, Chileans, etc. who increasingly supply food for the US market.
It's not treaties and trade agreements that control the pharmaceutical companies. It's more like extortion. The countries say, "Sell to us at the price we want, or we'll just steal your formulas and make our own."
The producers do want COO labeling; the distributors and retailers don't.
Please add me to your farm ping list! Thanks.
That's such a good, common-sense idea that no politician could have thought of it.
Stands2reason wrote "So much for Freepers wanting less government control over the market....."
Pissant says putting a label of origin is not government control. I'm not saying ban, promote, regulate or tax anything. I'm saying that just like when I buy a hammer, I want to know it's not a piece of crap from China.
I suppose you think putting ingredient lists on cans of food is a bad idea too. It's not regulation, it's common sense information sharing.
Consider yourself added. This can be a very high volume list so if you ever change your mind just let me know.
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