Media Makes Bad, Complex M-COOL Situation Worse
Steve Dittmer, executive vice president of the Agribusiness Freedom Foundation Colorado Springs, CO says the situation regarding the M-COOL Final Rule continues to get more serious and more complicated.
On Saturday, Nov. 23 deadline passed after which the USDA has said it will enforce the terms of the much more onerous revised regulations.
"Opponents of the turbocharged revised M-COOL rules had hoped to get a clause in the Farm Bill delaying or eliminating the new provisions," says Dittmer. "That would ameliorate the potential for major international trade disruptions and limit damage at the domestic retail level."
He says the Congressional schedule, is severely limited by hearings and debate on Syria, Benghazi, budget debates and the government partial shutdown. Now it is further being swamped by the spectacular failures and revelations of Obamacare and implications dawning on current or soon-to-be-ex insurance policy holders.
"Unfortunately, and not atypically, the national media is not getting the story straight," said Dittmer. "The Wall Street Journal headlined its "Marketing" section recently with a story that portrayed the whole M-COOL issue as a fight between meatpackers vs. cattle hog producers and consumer groups. There was absolutely no mention of the fact that the majority of cattle and hog producer groups and most of those producers opposed both the original and later turbocharged M-COOL provisions."
He says there was little mention of the severe impact the Rule has, and how much more it will have, on the trade with Canadian and Mexican producers, and American ranchers, feeders, packers and retailers. No mention of the hundreds of millions of dollars the Rule has already cost packers, feeders, ranchers and hog producers in the U.S. and neighboring countries without providing any of the benefit proponents promised.
Regrettably, the story brought up the subject of food safety, as if knowing the country of origin of a food is some guarantee of safety. Worse, there is no mention that food which is allowed into America has gone through inspection processes during processing equivalent to USDA standards or it doesn't get in.
"Yet once again -- and to further incorrect perceptions -- proponents of M-COOL imply that inspection is not a scientifically-directly procedure but a function of geography," Dittmer says. "In fact, the Journal story actually repeats the proponents' fallacious mantra that M-Cool help shoppers avoid food from countries with lax safety regulations. As if America routinely lets in foods from countries with noncompliant food safety standards. Why bother with inspection, if that were true?"
He says the story does mention the WTO ruling against the Rule and in favour of Canada and Mexico. But the story made it sound like the WTO so ruled because the Rule was not strict enough. The story implied the reason the Rule "failed to convey to consumers accurate and understandable information about countries of origin" was not because it is physically and verifiably impossible without exorbitant cost under the production volume of meat necessary for 21st century population levels but because packers just didn't want to comply and spend the money to do so.
Dittmer says the furor around M-COOL obscures the real agenda, which is to keep out competition from other countries to try to drive up the price of meat. The consumer is the biggest loser in all free trade opposition and meat is no exception. In addition to restricting supplies of certain meats to drive up prices to consumers, the other side of the card is damaging trade relations so that American livestock producers cannot sell any or as much meat and variety meat products overseas. That costs U.S. packers, feeders, ranchers and farmers significant money, increasing the risk all segments in the production chain lose money and go out of business, further cutting supplies of meats and increasing prices to consumers.
He concludes saying consumers -- the overwhelming majority of whom list COOL way down the list of purchasing considerations -- get false impressions regarding the connection of origin labels and food safety, are recruited in an effort to penalize themselves by increasing prices -- especially ground beef -- reducing meat supplies and, long-term, increasing the likelihood that the numbers of farmers, ranchers, feeders and meat packers shrink. •
— By Harry Siemens
Note: Here is an American perspective about the whole issue of what the Country of Origin Labeling fiasco is doing to the livestock industries on the North American continent.