“The House Agriculture Committee is prepared to lead” for repeal of the law requiring country-of-origin labels (COOL) on packages of beef, pork and chicken if the World Trade Organization rejects a final U.S. appeal, said chairman Michael Conaway. The WTO has ruled against the mandatory labels three times and says it intends to rule by May 18 on the last appeal allowed in the case. Canada and Mexico say COOL is a trade barrier in disguise that has reduced shipments of livestock into the United States.
Meatpackers and the largest trade groups representing cattle and hog producers oppose mandatory labeling as costly and a bookkeeping headache. They attempted to kill COOL during drafting of the 2014 farm law but were thwarted by Senate opposition. Consumer groups and the two biggest main-line U.S. farm groups support COOL as a way to satisfy the consumers’ right to know.
Conaway says the USDA proposed two options in case of defeat at WTO : either repeal COOL or switch to a “Product of North America” label to cover meat from animals born, raised and slaughtered in any or all of the three major countries on the continent.
“In order to avoid what could be devastating retaliatory sanctions against U.S. businesses if we lose … the starting point needs to be that mandatory COOL for meat is a failed experiment which should be repealed,” said Conaway in a statement. “The House Agriculture Committee is prepared to lead on this issue.”
The National Farmers Union, which supports COOL, warned against hasty decisions ahead of the WTO ruling. “This recent USDA report is premature and Congress should not intervene at this point during the WTO process,” said NFU president Roger Johnson. An Auburn University study commissioned by NFU concluded that the economic recession of 2008-09 and subsequent slow recovery were responsible for declines in livestock trade, not COOL. As a result, NFU says Canada and Mexico will not be able to prove losses from COOL and thus could not get WTO approval for retaliation.
The USDA homepage for COOL is available here.