100 MILE HOUSE, B.C. – The contentious United States country-of-origin labelling bill should be challenged in the international trade arena as soon as possible, producers say.
The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association wants the federal government to file legal challenges because even with revisions to the 2007 U.S. farm bill, it is not good enough, said president Brad Wildeman.
Revisions passed earlier this year require less record keeping, lower fines for noncompliance and better language for food labels than the original 2002 proposal.
“Our assertion, though, is that regardless of all (the revisions), it still does not meet NAFTA or WTO trade rules,” said Wildeman in an interview at the British Columbia Cattlemen’s Association annual meeting June 13-14.
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The country of origin is based on where animals are transformed into meat. The law applies to beef, pork, poultry, sheep and goats as well as produce and seafood.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is writing regulations that may not be ready until August. The rules then pass to the office of management and budget at the White House for approval. They will then be posted for public comment for 60 days. The CCA and Canadian government plan to comment at that time. A logistical problem is the timeline because it may not be possible to compose rules, get them approved and published by Oct. 1 when the law comes into effect.
“The longer it takes to get this thing passed, it is more likely Oct. 1 will not be the deadline,” Wildeman said. Until the legal work is done, there may only be “soft enforcement,” without penalties, he added.
Cattle exported before July 15 still qualify as American cattle so U.S. feeders have been actively buying Canadian cattle.
The revised U.S. labelling language has four categories. The first category is born, raised and slaughtered in the United States. The second is beef from multiple origins. For example, if cattle were born in Canada but fed and slaughtered in the U.S., the label would read “product of the U.S. and Canada.”
The third category is cattle imported for immediate slaughter, so the label would say, “product of Canada and the U.S.” The final category covers meat from foreign countries so the label would say the product may contain beef from a specified list of countries.
The Beef Information Centre promotes Canadian beef in the U.S. and is looking for ways around the new requirement, said chair John Gillespie of Ayr, Ont.
Food service is exempt, so more meat could be diverted to the hospitality and institutional trade.
“We have yet to find out how this meat is going to get labelled,” he said.
Ironically, the U.S. needs to import beef to fill its domestic needs even though it is a major exporter. Consumers there want beef similar to their own such as Canadian product.
“They do not want to discourage Canadian beef from coming in. There is a trade down there that needs our product,” Gillespie said.
There are regional packers in the U.S. that rely on imported cattle to keep them running at capacity even if they have to separate them from domestic animals.
“It will result in some challenges, of course, as far as segregation of the cattle down there, but you have to remember those meat packing plants need our product and they are going to figure out what it takes to fall within the guidelines of COOL,” he said.
Country-of-origin labelling is not the only challenge to beef exporters. No progress has been made with the European Union, which refuses to accept beef from Canada or the U.S. because most of the cattle receive growth-promoting hormones. The dispute stretches back to the mid 1980s.
At the end of May the European Commission appealed a World Trade Organization ruling rejecting the EU’s ban on imports of U.S. and Canadian beef. A WTO panel ruled that the EU’s rationale for the import ban is not supported by scientific evidence.
“The reality is it is unlikely they are ever going, at least in the short term, (to accept) hormone implanted cattle,” said Wildeman.
Canada shares with the United States a 11,500 tonne EU quota that includes bison.
“It just isn’t big enough,” Gillespie said.
The U.S. is requesting a larger quota of up to 300,000 tonnes and if Canada got 30,000 tonnes of that, there would be enough volume to make it worthwhile doing business with hormone-free beef.
