OMAHA (DTN) -- USDA officials expect to meet the department's Thursday deadline to modify mandatory country-of-origin labels for meat due to a World Trade Organization ruling even though the USDA proposal remains under review at the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Despite complaints from Canada and Mexico, USDA has moved ahead with attempts to rewrite its rule following a trade case in the WTO against the U.S. that concluded USDA's original label discriminated against livestock from other countries. Canada has threatened to offer a list of U.S. products for retaliatory tariffs if the new rule goes into effect.
USDA has a May 23 deadline to demonstrate it had complied or responded to the WTO ruling. Yet, as of Monday, the USDA proposal to rewrite COOL continued to be reviewed by other Obama administration officials. A USDA spokesman responding to an email Monday maintained USDA still planned to meet the Thursday deadline for its new labeling requirements.
Backers of country-of-origin labeling touted a new survey from the Consumer Federation of America citing that 90% of Americans favor labeling the origin of meat even though at least some members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees seek to repeal country-of-origin labeling.
The survey gave a needed injection of support to backers of country-of-origin labeling, or COOL. According to the CFA poll of 1,000 people, 87% favor, "strongly or somewhat" a label that would require retailers to label the country in which animals were born, raised and processed. Slightly more people backed a label that also noted the fact that the meat was processed in the U.S.
"The survey results are a further indication of what we have known for some time: Consumers overwhelmingly want to know more about the origins of their food, and farmers and ranchers want to provide this information," said National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson. "These findings, coupled with the recent withdrawal of two short-sighted amendments to the Senate and House's respective farm bills that would have negatively impacted country-of-origin labeling, are promising indications that country-of-origin labeling is vitally important and here to stay."
COOL in the U.S. is in its 11th year of being perfected after originally passed into law with the 2002 farm bill. Funding freezes in Congress blocked implementation of the labeling rule. It wasn't until the 2008 farm bill was passed that USDA actually began to implement the law. Canada and Mexico sued in the WTO quickly after.
The modified rule from USDA would require more information for muscle cuts on where each of the production steps -- born, raised and slaughtered -- occurred. For instance, a steer born in Canada, but raised and slaughtered in the U.S. would be labeled effectively in that manner, "Born in Canada, Raised and Slaughtered in the United States."
For all domestic animals, the label would change from "Product of the U.S." to "Born, Raised and Slaughtered in the U.S."
Retailers also would be prevented from commingling muscle cuts from different countries in packaging. Currently, a label for multiple cuts of meat may state "Product of the United States, Mexico and Canada." Now, meat from animals from different countries will have to be segregated during processing to provide more accurate information.
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