Labeling legislation comes to fruition

By Frank Priestly
Friday, September 12, 2008 4:33 PM CDT

Although it took six years, American agriculture has reason to celebrate this month as federal regulators are putting finishing touches on a law requiring food to be labeled by its country of origin.

Country-of-origin labeling or COOL as it has come to be known was approved by Congress with the 2002 Farm Bill. It’s producer-driven legislation that lets consumers know where their food comes from. Although it seems like a fairly simple, straightforward and courteous benefit, it took a lot of political haggling to finally make it happen.

COOL requires labeling of fresh beef, pork, lamb, chicken, fish, shellfish, peanuts, fruits, vegetables, macadamia nuts, pecans, and ginseng. It does not include processed foods like corned beef or chicken tenders, or food sold through foodservice companies to restaurants, hospitals, schools, and other institutions. The law goes into effect on Sept. 30.

When we think about all the products we come in contact with on a daily basis that are labeled, the question of why it took six years to get a food labeling bill implemented seems like an elephant in the parlor. The answer is COOL met a political firestorm that gripped American agriculture by it’s jugular pitting farmer against rancher, processor against packer and various state and national commodity organizations that normally work together against one another.

To further explain, putting a “Grown in USA” label on a bundle of asparagus or a bag of carrots really isn’t that big of a deal from the grower’s or packer’s perspective. Most of the time, fruit and vegetables are washed and packaged within a few miles of, or at the farm where grown. However, when you compare that to a facility like Miller’s Blue Ribbon Beef in Hyrum, Utah, processing several thousand head of cattle from two different countries nearly every day, the logistical and management issues escalate exponentially. One 1,200 pound market steer normally gets cut into roughly 100 packages of beef. Chicken, pork, lamb, and fish processing businesses all face a similar burden in complying with COOL. As you can see, the meat-processing industry faces big challenges in dealing with COOL, and their resistance was formidable.

However, in the end, we were able to come up with a compromise that we believe will increase demand for our products and benefit consumers, farmers, ranchers, and American agriculture across the board. We have dozens of solid examples of meat and produce labeling such as Idaho Potatoes and Washington Apples that fetch a premium price in the market because of their superior quality. But without the label to inform the consumer, there would be no distinction.

To most of us, it probably doesn’t make that much difference whether the couch we are sitting on was made in Indonesia or our televisions in Japan. But whether we realize it or not, we share a much more intimate relationship with our food. It sustains us and we deserve to know where it comes from.

Frank Priestley is president of the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation

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