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Rapid City Journal – Sunday – April 15, 2007
Country of origin labeling still main goal of R-CALF
By Andrea J. Cook, Journal staff
If a cantaloupe from Costa Rica, Chinese sardines and fruit grown in the United
States can be labeled to identify where they came from, it should be simple to
label meat with its country of origin, U.S. livestock producers say.
Members of R-CALF USA, or Ranchers-Cattlemen's Action Legal Fund United
Stockgrowers of America, who are committed to country-of-origin labeling say it
is vital to protecting the nation's food supply.
They are equally determined to protect consumers from the potential risk of
allowing Canadian cattle older than 30 months of age back into the U.S. food
supply.
Congress passed legislation in 2002 requiring country-of-origin labeling, but
the U.S. Department of Agriculture has resisted implementing COOL.
"Who would have known it would have taken this long over a deal so simple," said
Rick Fox of Hermosa, president of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association,
which is affiliated with R-CALF USA.
"It has to come from the producers that demand it and consumers that demand
these things," Fox said.
Ultimately, it could be the deaths of people's pets, attributed to a banned
substance in imported wheat gluten, that puts pressure on USDA, Fox said. People
are beginning to talk about the importance of a safe, local source of food, he
said.
That's the message that R-CALF, as a representative of the livestock industry,
continues to carry into court and to the nation's capital, Fox said.
"That's basically what we've been about is having a U.S. food supply and having
it labeled," Fox said. "I think we're making progress."
USDA's attempt to tie COOL to an animal identification system is "overkill in
terms of obtaining the necessary information to determine country of origin,"
said Bill Bullard, R-CALF's chief executive officer.
The only products that need to be singled out for identification are those
coming from imported animals, Bullard said.
Keeping the nation's borders closed to cattle older than 30 months, OTM, of age
is another R-CALF mission. Re-opening the border to the older Canadian cattle
not only has the potential to harm livestock producers by flooding the market
with cattle, but it increases the risk of exposing American consumers to bovine
spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, also known as "mad cow disease," R-CALF
contends.
USDA is considering opening the border to the older Canadian cattle. Beef from
the older cattle is banned in most international markets.
"We've always had the safest food standards in the world right here in the
U.S.," said Johnny Smith of Fort Pierre. Smith is a regional R-CALF director.
Smith blames "big business" for putting pressure on USDA to reopen the border. A
Canadian bull recently tested positive for BSE, which indicates that Canada does
not have control of the disease, he said.
In Great Britain, 1,000 people have died from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,
a fatal brain disease linked to BSE, Smith said.
"Yet our government in their infinite wisdom wants us to bring in crap from
Canada," he said. "The worst part is, they won't label it. When it comes across
the border, it is automatically U.S.A. meat."
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/04/15/news/top/news00b.txt
Contact Andrea Cook at 394-8423 or
andrea.cook@rapidcityjournal.com |
