Basin rep:

Country of origin labeling 'a good thing'

By Matthew Weaver

Herald senior staff writer

Cattlemen Association files comments with USDA

SAN LUCAS, Calif. - Last week the U.S. Cattlemen's Association filed comments with the U.S. Department of Agriculture regarding mandatory country of origin labeling.

The department's proposed rule would require labeling for beef, lamb, pork, perishable agricultural commodities and peanuts.

The association comments were submitted in response to the department's request for comment prior to the adoption of the final rule.

Congress amended in 2002 the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 by adding a provision for the country of origin labeling to the Farm Bill. In July 2007, Congress again amended the act by adding language regarding different allowable categories for labeling beef product.

The amendment maintains the language of the 2002 Farm Bill with respect to U.S. products, and established a multiple country of origin meat label for product derived from animals not of U.S. origin. The current law amends the act by requiring an imported meat label for product imported into the United States for immediate harvest.

Prior to the association submitting its comments, Moses Lake resident Lee Engelhardt, past president of the Cattle Producers of Washington and a member of the board of directors of the association, spoke with the Columbia Basin Herald regarding country of origin labeling and the Farm Bill.

"If we can get country of origin done properly and meaningful, I think that's a good thing, especially with this scare going on with our imported food," he said.

The labeling is beneficial to communities economically and for health reasons, Engelhardt said.

"It's already a proven fact, if you raise it in your own community, the dollars will roll over seven times," he said. "Imported product rolls over one and a half to two times. So from an economic standpoint, that's good, isn't it, to raise it local? For you as a consumer in our area, it's a good thing to buy local. You like to buy it fresh and local. You support me, I try to support you. That's a good thing."

If a product moves from one place to another further away, there's more chance for something to happen than closer to home, Engelhardt noted.

"We haven't really had any 'big problems,' but that doesn't mean it isn't potentially there with foot-and-mouth disease and some of those out of South America that could have it," he said. "We need to be very

diligent on our borders for that reason. I don't think it's a big problem or a problem that's coming, but its potential is there."

Consumers are demanding the country of origin labeling, Engelhardt said.

"There's such an increase in natural beef, organic beef and organic farming, all these close, home-grown things, why not take care of our own?" he said. "If you continue to search out the cheapest place in the world for raw materials, you also seek out the cheapest place with the least amount of health (standards). One of the reasons we have the safest food in the world is because we live under the hardest rules and safety procedures in the world."

But there has to be compensation for working under those rules and procedures, Engelhardt added, or cattle farmers are going to quit and consumers can get their food from a Third World country.

In the past 15 years, the United States went from a trade surplus to a trade deficit in the farming sector on free trade agreements, Engelhardt said.

"How is America going to succeed on a deficit?" he asked. "We can't continue to do that."

In the Farm Bill, Engelhardt would like to see the Competition Title for beef, a proposed section of the bill, remain.

"All it basically is asking (is) to keep fair competition in it," Engelhardt said, with a chuckle.

"Right now there is some advantages to not being in this country to raise beef. The government tries to regulate everything, well it needs to be balanced, good and bad. If you're going to regulate it for the problems, then help regulate it for the good things, too."

Engelhardt believes the country's mentality has changed from the 1930s, when such cattle diseases as foot-and-mouth disease and brucellosis were eradicated because they were kept out of the country by maintaining border status.

"Now we've transformed clear full circle and we prepare for when we get it, how we're going to take and contain it," he said. "What happened to, 'Let's maintain our borders and just keep it out?'"

Engelhardt believes the brucellosis program was a very functional model of a good system, but the fallacy of any system is maintaining the wildlife sector.

"We can get some of these diseases through the wildlife even if we have all of these i.d. programs in place - there's still the opportunity for it," he said.