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Dow Jones Newswires –
Wednesday – September 10, 2008 – 16:32 EDT
(quotes R-CALF
USA CEO Bill Bullard)
Origin-Label Law Fails To Promote US Meat-US Senator
By Bill Tomson
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--One of the core
reasons Congress drafted a country-of-origin labeling law was to help promote
U.S. products by singling them out, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture has
undermined that goal by allowing producers a cheaper, multi-country-of-origin
label option, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said in a letter to the USDA.
In the Sept. 9 letter, a copy of which was obtained by Dow Jones Newswires,
Tester complained that the rules USDA wrote to interpret the labeling law make
it preferable to meatpackers to simply label their products as having come from
multiple countries rather than having to keep track of individual national
origins.
The USDA is scheduled to begin implementing country-of-origin labeling, a law
that would mandate that much of the beef, pork and chicken on supermarket
shelves be labeled.
"This gives consumers the impression that there is no domestically born, raised
and slaughtered livestock and denies our American livestock producers the
opportunity to focus on promoting U.S. beef, lamb, pork, chicken or goat meat,"
Tester said in the letter.
Bill Bullard, chief executive of the rancher group R-CALF United Stockgrowers of
America, said Wednesday he thinks the USDA's rule on country of origin labeling
"misinterprets" what Congress intended because it allows meatpackers to
"circumvent the use of the USA label."
If meat comes from an animal born raised and slaughtered in the U.S., packers
should have to label it as such, he said.
USDA Undersecretary Bruce Knight told Dow Jones Newswires on Wednesday that
meatpackers will only go to the extra lengths of separating meat from different
countries and label the U.S.-derived product as being of U.S. origin if they
believe it will be worthwhile.
"The marketplace will determine the highest and best use for product if there is
a premium for U.S. origin. And there are definitely packers out there ... where
you're clearly going to have product that will be labeled 'of U.S. origin,'"
Knight said.
But R-CALF's Bullard insisted the USDA rule creates a "big
problem" and his group will go back to Congress to seek legislative changes.
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