The Canadian Pork Council says it’s unfortunate that, during a time of economic turmoil, U.S. food labelling laws are making it even more difficult for the North American agriculture sector to compete with the world.
Earlier this month representatives of the Canadian and Mexican cattle, swine and meat processing sectors traveled Washington to express their concerns over U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling to American law makers.
Canadian Pork Council chair Jurgen Preugschas says, while producers and processors are adhering to the law, additional labeling measures being proposed would be contrary to international trade agreements and have devastating effects on trade.
On the hog side the main concern is the movement of live animals into the U.S.
What has happened is that the movement of weanling and feeder hogs has slowed down by over 40 percent moving in there and this is affecting producers on this side of the border as well as on the U.S. side in that they had developed a system whereby you would have efficient production of hogs and finish them out, do that work in that country that was most efficient and best at doing it.
What this has done now, COOL has arbitrarily changed how people can do business and it is making our hog industry inefficient for production costs and thereby uncompetitive with the world market.
That’s our major concern.
It’s affecting certainly our producers on this side as well as producers and packers on the U.S. side.
Preugschas notes, while the delegation was able to outline its concerns, because there is a complaint over the U.S. labelling law before the Word Trade Organization, American officials have been reluctant to discuss the issue.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
