For Immediate Release: August 5, 2026
Contact: R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard
Phone: 406-252-2516; r-calfusa@r-calfusa.com
Please find below R-CALF USA’s weekly opinion/commentary that discusses how listeners can influence the Senate Ag Committee when they vote for MCOOL in the Farm Bill on Thursday August 6, 2026. It is in three formats: written, audio and video. Anyone is welcome to use it for broadcasting or reporting.
Senate Ag Committee to Vote on MCOOL
Commentary by Bill Bullard, CEO, R-CALF USA
Today’s program is special as I have some urgent news to share with you and a request for help. The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee is expected to vote on whether to include mandatory country-of-origin labeling (MCOOL) for beef in the Senate version of the Farm Bill on Thursday, August 6, 2026.
Now many of you have been helping us for over a decade to restore MCOOL for beef so consumers can know whether they’re supporting American cattle farmers and ranchers or foreign countries when they purchase beef at their grocery store. Of course, MCOOL benefits cattle farmers and ranchers by enabling them to compete against the ever-growing volume of imported beef that is indistinguishable from domestic beef when presented at your local meat counter.
The reason consumers don’t have origin information on their beef today, but do have origin information on their fruits and vegetables, chicken, lamb, fish and shellfish, certain nuts and ginseng, is because the multinational beef packers and the organizations that represent them such as the Meat Institute and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) are opposed to informing consumers as to the origins of beef.
These groups have armies of lobbyists who are pulling out all the stops right now to convince members of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee to vote against including MCOOL in the Farm Bill.
This is where your help comes in. We can overcome the opposition of the powerful multinational beef packers and their allied organizations by generating hundreds, if not thousands of calls directly to your U.S. Senators to urge them to vote “Yes” on including MCOOL for beef in the Farm Bill.
I’ll give you this number again at the end, but you can reach your U.S. Senators by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202‑224‑3121 and asking to speak to your Senators by name.
When I said the lobbyists who are helping the multinational beef packers by preventing Congress from requiring them to disclose the origins of the beef they are now selling to unsuspecting consumers, I meant just that.
The Meat Institute just issued an advocacy paper that is disguised as an economic study. The Meat Institute claims the paper is proof that the cost of MCOOL is excessive and consumers won’t likely benefit from knowing whether their beef comes from Brazil, Costa-Rica, Mexico, or any of the 20 different countries they source their beef from, or if it is born, raised, and slaughtered right here in the United States. Now their advocacy paper is just that. It is not a legitimate economic study as about all they did was make assumptions that benefit the packers and then inputted those assumptions into outdated models along with more recent data that was adjusted for inflation.
What the advocacy paper failed to disclose are the actual costs of implementing MCOOL for beef before MCOOL for beef was repealed by Congress in 2015. You see, consumers benefited from MCOOL for beef from early 2013 through late 2015 when it was the law of the land. The costs were not excessive, and consumers were afforded important information as to the origin of their beef. Consumers could choose to buy domestic beef that is produced under the most stringent animal production and food safety standards of the United States, or they could choose to buy lower-cost beef from countries with questionable food safety records – such as from Brazil whose food safety inspectors were found to have been bribed by multinational beef packers back in 2017. That’s why fresh beef from Brazil was banned from the United States from mid-2017 through 2019.
The multinational beef packers and their allied organizations oppose MCOOL for one reason: They increase their profit margins when they import cheaper beef from around the world and then sell that beef to consumers for the same price as the higher quality beef they source from American cattle farmers and ranchers.
This is a deception achieved by nondisclosure of the origins of beef. Mandatory country-of-origin labeling will change that. It will require all beef sold in U.S. grocery stores to be labeled as to where the animal was born, raised, and slaughtered.
With MCOOL, consumers will have a choice of where they want their beef produced and by whom. Knowing the origin of beef is a fundamental consumer right. It will empower consumers to decide where the multinational beef packers must source their beef in order to satisfy consumer demand.
Please call your two U.S. Senators as soon as possible and tell them you want them to vote “Yes” on including mandatory country of origin labeling in the Farm Bill. And, again, you can reach your U.S. Senators by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and asking for them by name.
Thank you for your help and we’ll let you know how the vote turns out.
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R-CALF USA’s weekly opinion/commentary educates and informs both consumers and producers about timely issues important to the U.S. cattle and sheep industries and rural America.
Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA) is the largest producer-only trade association in the United States. It is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle and sheep industries. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com or call 406-252-2516.