United States-Country of Origin labelling still being debated.

UNITED STATES- COOL STILL BEING DEBATED.

Conflicts among North American cattlemen over a mandatory U.S.

country-of-origin meat labeling law appear to be intensifying with the

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association voting at its annual meeting to urge

promotion of U.S. beef, and Canadian and Mexican beef officials saying

trade battles over labeling are likely to continue.

A labeling law, part of the 2008 farm bill, will go into effect on March

16, although the Obama administration is reviewing the Bush

administration’s final rule.

The NCBA had opposed meat mandatory labeling, contending that it would

cause trade conflicts and endanger U.S. exports.

But the National Farmers Union, competing cattle groups and many

individual ranchers contended that the current label that says meat is USDA

inspected and approved gives foreign producers an unfair advantage because

consumers assume the meat comes from U.S. animals.

That pro-labeling spirit was evident at the NCBA meeting Saturday when the

membership voted to support the use of beef checkoff money to promote U.S.

beef rather than all beef. In the 1985 farm bill, Congress set up a Beef

Board to collect $1 per head on the sale of all cattle in the United States

and the equivalent on imported beef.

The money, about $50 million per year, has been used for product research

and for generic advertising campaigns such as "Beef: It’s What’s For

Dinner" but has never mentioned the country of origin of beef.

The Beef Board rather than NCBA would have to move to use some of the

money to promote U.S. beef, but the NCBA vote was a powerful signal of

changing views within the industry.

At a concurrent meeting in Phoenix, the Beef Board voted to seek

congressional approval to double the checkoff fee to $2 per head and to

allow R-CALF USA and the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, both of which have

promoted labeling, to compete with NCBA to be contractors for spending

checkoff money. NCBA did not go along with those ideas and instead passed a

resolution that the checkoff program should be "fair, cost-efficient and

coordinated in order to achieve long-range goals."

Meanwhile, Brad Wildeman, president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s

Association, said his group had gone along with the Canadian government’s

decision to put a World Trade Organization complaint against the U.S.

regulation on hold after the Bush administration made changes in the final

rule, but that it would urge revival of the complaint if the Obama

administration changes the rule.

Wildeman said meat from Canadian animals slaughtered in the United States

should be labeled as a U.S. product because processing an animal into meat

is the same "substantial transformation" that occurs when Detroit turns

foreign steel into an automobile that is labeled as American.