MFU KUFM Commentary

By Sandy Courtnage

June 3, 2008

It is election day – and what a long primary season it has been.  Finally, we can hope that some much-awaited decisions will be made. 

The recently passed Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 illustrates this point.  This bill – better known as the Farm Bill – has undergone many transformations and detours prior to its passage.  Indeed, there remains some confusion over whether or not Congress will need to vote on the bill again because of an error in the bill sent to the President.

It is far from a perfect bill – yet there are some truly exciting measures that are included.

Back in 2001, when the previous Farm Bill was being debated, a country-of-origin labeling provision was inserted in that bill.

It seemed like such a simple, yet fundamentally useful tool for agricultural producers and consumers alike.  Yet there have been more than 30 attempts in the past two decades to pass legislation requiring retailers and manufacturers to label food with its origin.  All have been defeated in subcommittee without even a floor debate. 

It’s too costly, it’s unworkable, it’s a trade barrier and confusing were the complaints of the opposition.  As the saying goes, we can know where our T-shirts come from, but not our T-bones.

Somehow that message started to resonate.  While the early efforts rarely made it out of subcommittee, in the last hours of committee debate on the 2002 bill, John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota and Mike Ross, an Arkansas Democrat, introduced a country-of-origin amendment.

Thune was worried about the domestic cattle industry and Ross was concerned that imported Vietnamese catfish would hurt his state’s farm-raised fish growers. 

Their effort failed, but Congresswomen Mary Bono from California and Darlene Hooley from Oregon, added a produce-labeling amendment during floor debate and got it through the House.  That was a first victory for country-of-origin labeling – or COOL, as we now know it. 

Building on that victory has not been easy.  Provisions were added and removed, and both sides never gave up.  But, when the 2002 Farm Bill passed, it included a country-of-origin labeling provision.

So why is it such a big deal to us that the 2008 Farm Bill also contains COOL?  It is because in the past six years, COOL was never enacted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  Stalling techniques, misinformation and tortured rule writing prevailed.

So let’s fast forward to 2007 when the current bill was being debated and written.  Something interesting happened.  Last summer, opponents to COOL again were attempting to weaken the current law.  According to news reports, proponents made it clear that, if necessary, they would raise the bar and increase talk of imported food scares.  This made the folks who wanted to weaken COOL to rethink their strategy.

At this point, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson of Minnesota got both sides of the COOL issue to agree that NFU President Tom Buis and long-time livestock-meat industry lobbyist Randy Russell would work with Peterson and the committee’s Ranking Member Bob Goodlatte to work out a compromise. 

As one pro-COOL group said, “The stars are lining up . . .”  Consumer support and demand for labeling was strong.  Also, mandatory COOL for seafood was implemented in 2005 and the sky did not fall.  In that late-night discussion, all parties gave a little and agreed that they would support the compromise throughout the Farm Bill debate.  The negotiated compromise, in large part, was a congressional directive to USDA on how to implement the law for meat.  There is less room to insert unnecessary cost and burden. 

So, COOL should be implemented this year in September.  It will include beef, lamb, pork, goat meat, farm-raised and wild fish, perishable agriculture commodities, and peanuts.

We think we are within months of labeling.  We have traveled a rocky political road to get to this place, but this fall you should see labeling changes in your local grocery stores.

For the Montana Farmers Union, I’m Sandy Courtnage.  Thanks for listening.