Cattle Raisers ask for repeal of mandatory labeling

FORT WORTH, Texas, April 3, 2003—Members of Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association passed a resolution March 26 asking Congress to repeal mandatory provisions of the country-of-origin labeling law and to opt instead for a voluntary, market-driven approach.
      TSCRA also passed resolutions opposing negotiation of any bilateral trade agreements or enlargement of Australian beef quotas that would be detrimental to U.S. beef producers; supporting the bovine sequencing initiative; and asking government agencies to cease distribution of Russian olives, an invasive species.
      The action came on the final day of TSCRA’s 126th annual convention held March 23-26 in San Antonio. Approximately 2,390 ranchers, family members and representatives of allied industries participated in TSCRA’s annual convention, trade show and School for Successful Ranching.
      The resolution on country-of-origin labeling originated in TSCRA’s Marketing Committee after an extensive examination of the issue. Barry Carpenter, deputy administrator of USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, described the contents of the law and the guidelines that will be the basis for regulations developed to implement the mandatory program.
      TSCRA members were particularly concerned that chicken—one of beef’s major competitors—is not included in the requirements and that food service establishments—which sell more than 50 percent of the beef purchased in the United States—are specifically excluded.
      The law requires retailers to “maintain a verifiable recordkeeping audit trail” regarding country-of-origin claims. Those responsibilities are going to be pushed all the way down the production chain to the producer, said Mark Dopp, senior vice president for regulatory affairs and general counsel for the American Meat Institute.
      The law provides that the retailer can be fined up to $10,000 for each violation, Dopp noted. “Retailers are already demanding of packers that contracts be adjusted,” Dopp said. “If the retailer is exposed to some civil penalty, they’re going to be looking to their suppliers for indemnification. So we will be looking for similar indemnification from our suppliers. A verifiable recordkeeping audit trail is required by our customers, and we, in turn, will require it of our suppliers.”
      Dr. Ernest E. Davis, Extension economist, estimated that it will cost cow-calf operators $13.30 per animal to maintain the needed records.
      Marketing Committee members also submitted a resolution on bilateral trade agreements, stating that such agreements “sometimes remove pressure from countries to earnestly negotiate in important multilateral negotiations.”
      Instead TSCRA favors multilateral trade negotiations “that can benefit many exporting and importing nations, resulting in fairer trade rules for all producers and consumers globally.”
      Cattle raisers are also concerned that “Australia has proposed the removal of import quotas on Australian beef under a proposed bilateral trade agreement between the United States and Australia.”
      TSCRA opposes any enlargement in the Australian beef quota, noting that “federal and state laws and regulations have made it almost impossible for American ranchers to compete with many of our foreign competitors.”
      Members also resolved “to play a key role in garnering the necessary support to advance the $50 million bovine genome sequencing initiative."
      The resolution was submitted by TSCRA’s Agricultural Research Committee after an in-depth presentation by Dr. Clare Gill, a professor of animal genomics at Texas A&M University. Dr. Gill serves on the steering committee for the bovine genome project.
      She explained that information on the bovine genome would not only provide major economic benefits to the cattle industry, but would provide extensive benefits to human health research as well.
      “The bovine model is relevant to human health research priorities such as obesity, female health, osteoporosis and communicable diseases,” Dr. Gill said. She added that bovine insulin has long been used to treat human diabetes, and in vitro fertilization techniques were first developed in cattle.
      The cattle industry would benefit from information on productivity, growth characteristics, disease resistance, drought tolerance, marbling, tenderness, flavor and other important traits.
      Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association is a 126-year-old trade organization whose 12,800 members manage approximately 3.6 million cattle on 52.9 million acres of range and pasture land, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma.

TSCRA-11-2003