The bill would set out processor fines of US$5,000 per pound of beef that doesn’t meet label standards.

COOL, or country-of-origin labelling, surged back into the headlines this year, eight years after the U.S.’s mandatory COOL system was repealed in 2015 after a bitter trade dispute between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Why it matters: Canada’s livestock sectors do not want to repeat the years-long fight against country-of-origin labelling.

In March, the U.S. proposed a regulation that would require animals to be born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the U.S. (as opposed to just processed), in order for beef to be labelled as U.S.-made. Labels would be voluntary rather than mandatory.

The Canadian meat sector argued the differences would be largely semantic and, in practice, the results would be much the same as mandatory COOL.

In January, proposed legislation was also introduced in the U.S. Senate, which sought to re-instate mandatory COOL rules on beef. It relied on the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to bring back the requirements without prompting a trade dispute. That bill was read twice before being shifted to the body’s ag committee.

The recent proposal reportedly dovetails with that January legal effort.

Skepticism

Canadian experts say the newest proposal is unlikely to be supported among U.S. lawmakers.

University of Guelph associate professor Rakhal Sarker, who researches the economics of agri-food trade, noted similar policy has previously failed.

“You know what happened to the previous COOL, right? It didn’t succeed, and WTO (World Trade Organization) authorized Canada and Mexico to impose duties on U.S. products so they can recover the damage,” he said.

He expects U.S. politicians will keep that track record in mind when assessing the new proposal.

Canadian Cattle Association executive vice-president Dennis Laycraft similarly suggested the recent push is not unprecedented.

“There’s been a number of different senators who have been trying to bring some language to bring back mandatory country of origin labeling,” he said.

“The [Biden] administration … are still saying anything that is done has to be compliant with the World Trade Organization and their international obligations… What’s being proposed clearly, in this particular bill, would not be, so they don’t believe it’s likely to go anywhere, but we follow it closely anyway.”

Laycraft said previous rules with similar goals proved financially inefficient.

“The irony in that is, when those goals were in, that were eventually overturned at the WTO, their own analysis showed … the previous measure would have cost the U.S. industry over $8 billion,” he said.

“It led to segregation within the system. Cattle that we exported either as feeder or animals that were ready to go to processing were discounted about $45 an animal on average.”

A similar labelling plan in Canada has little traction, he added.

“For the most part, that’s been fairly well addressed on our side. We have a trademark label that many retailers use.”

Sarker said that even if this particular American proposal were to pass, it would likely pose no major threat to the Canadian ag sector.

“It will reduce the progress of e-commerce and probably that would have a ripple effect in Canada,” Sarker said. “But I don’t think the e-commerce is so big that it will have any significant damage to our major sectors.”

The post U.S. COOL proposal unlikely to affect Canadian beef appeared first on Farmtario.

“One of the great strengths of the U.S.-Canada bilateral relationship is the successful integration of our meat and livestock sectors,” the submission said.

The Canadian government made its submission June 9 as part of U.S. consultations on voluntary country of origin labeling (vCOOL) for U.S. meat, poultry and eggs.

The Biden administration proposed the rule in March in response to lobbying from U.S. ranchers, Reuters reported at the time. The rule would limit “Product of USA” and similar labels to products derived from animals that were born, raised and slaughtered in the U.S. However, it would not require products to carry an origin label.

Under current rules, animal products can be labelled as “Product of USA” if animals were processed in the U.S., even if they were born and raised elsewhere.

In 2022, total U.S.-Canada trade in live cattle, hogs, poults and chicks, hatching eggs, beef and pork was worth more than US$8 billion, according to the recent Canadian submission.

Canada has argued that supply chains operating under the proposed rules will have to segregate Canadian and U.S. animals and products. This would be costly and inefficient and discourage companies from using Canadian inputs.

A similar rationale led to the downfall of vCOOL’s mandatory predecessor, struck down in 2015 following a World Trade Organization challenge that ruled in favour of the complainants, Canada and Mexico.

The new proposed rule could also harm U.S. producers, the Canadian government said.

“For example, in recent years, there has been an increase in live cattle exports from the United States to Canada due to feedlot capacity expansion in Canada, higher processing volumes, and strong demand for beef,” the submission read.

“Under the new proposed rule, if an American rancher sends an animal to a Canadian feedlot, by virtue of availability, proximity, or economics, that is then sent back to the U.S. for slaughter and processing, that product would no longer be allowed to bear a ‘Product of USA’ claim.”

The rule also fails to account for supply-chain integration in border states and provinces, the submission claims. It would put undue pressure on processing facilities, especially small or medium-sized plants, to source American inputs when Canadian inputs are closer at hand.

The Canadian government requested that the U.S. “pauses and reconsiders the proposed rule in order to allow for consultations between Canadian and U.S. officials.” –– Manitoba Co-operator staff

The post Canada warns VCOOL would sabotage shared Canada-U.S. goals, supply chains appeared first on Farmtario.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and its Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) on Monday announced they plan to publish a new proposed rule on U.S. meat origin labels for a 60-day public comment period.

USDA said in a release the new rule will offer “new regulatory requirements to better align the voluntary ‘Product of USA’ label claim with consumer understanding of what the claim means.”

USDA said Monday it undertook a review starting in July 2021 “to understand what the ‘Product of USA’ claim means to consumers and inform planned rulemaking.”

The department said it found in a related survey of U.S. consumers that “a significant portion believ(es) the claim means that the product was made from animals born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the United States.”

A “Product of USA” label claim would continue to be voluntary under the new rule, and would also still be eligible for “generic label approval” — meaning it would not need FSIS pre-approval before it could be used on regulated product.

However, the new rule would require that supporting documentation for so-labelled products be kept on file for FSIS personnel to verify.

Apart from the “authorized” label claims for ‘Product of USA’ or ‘Made in the USA,’ the rule also proposes to allow other voluntary U.S. origin claims seen on meat, poultry and egg products sold in the marketplace.

However, those other claims would need to include a description on the package of “all preparation and processing steps that occurred in the United States upon which the claim is made.”

Those other label claims are described as “qualified” claims. “Sliced and packaged in the United States, using imported pork” was given as an example of a qualified claim.

Currently, USDA said, FSIS-regulated products coming from animals that may have been born, raised and slaughtered in another country but are “minimally processed” in U.S. facilities may currently be labeled as ‘Product of USA.’

That policy, USDA said, “may be causing false impressions about the origin of FSIS-regulated products in the U.S. marketplace.”

“American consumers expect that when they buy a meat product at the grocery store, the claims they see on the label mean what they say,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Monday in the department’s release. “These proposed changes are intended to provide consumers with accurate information to make informed purchasing decisions.”

‘No evidence’

However, the North American Meat Institute, a U.S. lobby group representing beef, pork, lamb, veal and turkey packers and processors, said the proposed new rule “uses the same standard” as the mandatory COOL statute Washington repealed in 2015.

Mandatory COOL was first developed during the Clinton administration, passed near the end of the George W. Bush administration in 2008 and put in place during the Obama administration in 2009. It imposed mandatory origin labels for beef, pork, lamb, chicken and goat meat and certain other perishable commodities where sold at retail in the U.S.

Canada and Mexico responded by challenging COOL at the World Trade organization and in U.S. courts, because the COOL rules — as applied by Vilsack as the Obama administration’s ag secretary — called for U.S. processors of meat from imported animals to provide labels that detailed where the specific animals involved in a given package of meat were born, raised and slaughtered.

The costs involved in segregating animals and production lines to follow the COOL law prompted some U.S. packers and processors to restrict or halt their imports or cut the prices they paid for Canadian cattle and hogs. Some estimates at the time pegged Canadian cattle and hog producers’ losses to reduced prices and lost sales at over $8 billion.

Washington-based NAMI said the U.S. government “lost four times” against Canada and Mexico before the WTO in 2015 authorized those countries to levy over US$1 billion in retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods if the COOL rule wasn’t withdrawn.

By comparison, the new rule announced this week would limit the use of voluntary ‘Product of USA’ claims, so that only products made from livestock born, raised, harvested and processed in the U.S. could be so labelled, NAMI said.

But such a rule, NAMI said, “will have a discriminatory effect, causing meat packers and processors who wish to make the claim to segregate cattle, hogs, and meat from other nations.”

That segregation “was the basis for the WTO finding and is what allows Canada and Mexico to levy tariffs on American goods,” NAMI said.

Canada and Mexico “still retain that (WTO) authorization” for retaliatory tariffs, NAMI said, and any new label law that uses the same standard as mandatory COOL would allow those countries to “initiate retaliation with no further action by the WTO.”

NAMI also claims the proposed new label rule would actually be “broader than mandatory COOL” because it would also cover processed products, and products intended for foodservice, none of which were subject to the COOL rule.

The lobby group emphasized consumer opinion and transparency are “important to the meat and poultry industry” but said “there is no evidence this rule will increase already high consumer demand for meat and poultry products.”

Also, while supporters of the former COOL and the proposed new rule “like to claim” mandatory COOL increased the prices U.S. beef producers received in the years before that rule’s repeal, “this assertion ignores basic supply and demand fundamentals,” NAMI said.

“In 2015, cattle prices saw record highs because there was a limited supply of cattle to harvest increasing demand. And today, without COOL, cattle prices are again approaching record highs, also due to supply and demand.”

The proposed new rule also “does not consider the integrated nature of the North American meat and poultry industry,” NAMI said. “Livestock and meat products from Canada and Mexico are shipped, tariff-free, across the border for slaughter and processing in the United States. Likewise, meat products are shipped from the United States to Canada and Mexico.”

That “integrated competitive market” allows for more affordable beef and pork for U.S. consumers, NAMI said.

“Unfortunately, this proposed rule is problematic for many reasons. USDA should have considered more than public sentiment on an issue that impacts international trade,” NAMI CEO Julie Anna Potts said in a release.

Will review

In a separate statement Tuesday, Canada’s Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau and Trade Minister Mary Ng concurred that the Canadian and U.S. meat and livestock sectors are “highly integrated” and that collaboration “contributes to the growth and resilience of farmers and processors on both sides of the border.”

Canada “remains concerned about any measures that may cause disruptions to the integrated North American livestock supply chains,” they said, and will “closely review” the proposed new rules.

The ministers said the federal government will also “participate in the U.S. rule-making process” to make sure the new rules adhere to Washington’s international trade obligations and won’t disrupt supply chains.

Bibeau and Ng also emphasized the Canadian government remains “firmly opposed” to any U.S. proposition that would attempt to revive a mandatory COOL system.

According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, language has also been included in the 2020 Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) requiring that each party to the trade pact ensures any regulations on labeling “accord treatment no less favourable than that accorded to like goods of national origin.”

Any rules on labeling that any of the CUSMA free trade bloc members impose in the future also must “not create unnecessary obstacles to trade between the parties.”

All that said, separate legislation, which if passed would compel the U.S. Trade Representative’s office and USDA to come up with a new and WTO-compliant mandatory COOL system just for beef, has already been before Congress for months or more.

A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate in September 2021 by Senator John Thune of South Dakota was read twice in that chamber and referred to its agriculture, nutrition and forestry committee.

An identical bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in late March last year by Texas Rep. Lance Gooden was referred at that time to the House ag committee, and to the House committee on ways and means. The ag committee last April 18 referred the bill to a House subcommittee on livestock and foreign agriculture. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Meat lobby says U.S. voluntary label rule could spur trade action appeared first on Farmtario.

Rep. Lance Gooden, a Republican from Texas, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, on Wednesday introduced H.R. 7291, proposing to restore the word “beef” into existing labeling law under the U.S. Agricultural Marketing Act.

The bill, if passed and enacted, would give U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack up to 180 days to “determine a means of reinstating” mandatory COOL for beef in a way that’s “in compliance with all applicable rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).”

Tai and Vilsack would have up to a year from the date when the bill is enacted to “implement the means” to do so.

“American cattle ranchers are being undercut by foreign competition because current labeling standards allow imported beef to be marked as made in the United States if it is only packaged here,” Gooden said in a release Wednesday. “Our trade policies should promote American-made beef and put the hard-working cattle ranchers in the United States first.”

“It is critical that American consumers are able to make informed decisions about the meat they buy,” Khanna said in the same release. “Consumers should be able to know that they are truly supporting American farmers and ranchers from labels at the store.”

Groups including the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association and R-CALF USA also stated their support for the bill in Gooden’s release on Wednesday.

After its introduction Wednesday in the House of Representatives, the bill was referred to both the House agriculture committee and the House Ways and Means committee.

A nearly identical bipartisan bill, S. 2716, was introduced last fall in the U.S. Senate by Sen. John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, and Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, among others.

That bill was introduced Sept. 13, read twice and referred that day to the Senate committee on agriculture, nutrition, and forestry and has yet to return.

Both of the bills specify restoring COOL for beef must be WTO-compliant, because beef was pulled from the relevant labeling legislation in 2015 after the WTO ruled that COOL violated the United States’ international trade obligations.

COOL was first developed during the Clinton administration, passed near the end of the George W. Bush administration in 2008 and implemented during the Obama administration in 2009. It imposed mandatory origin labels for beef, pork, lamb, chicken and goat meat and certain other perishable commodities where sold at retail in the U.S.

Canada and Mexico responded by challenging COOL at the WTO and in U.S. courts, because the COOL rules — as applied by Vilsack as the Obama administration’s ag secretary — called for U.S. processors of meat from imported animals to provide labels that detailed where the specific animals involved in a given package of meat were born, raised and slaughtered.

The costs involved in segregating animals and production lines to follow that label law prompted some U.S. packers and processors to restrict or halt their imports or cut the prices they paid for Canadian cattle and hogs. Some estimates pegged Canadian cattle and hog producers’ losses to reduced prices and lost sales at over $8 billion.

After the WTO’s 2015 ruling against COOL, the Obama administration repealed the label rules on beef and pork rather than face retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Mexico on U.S. goods.

Since then, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, language has also been included in the 2020 Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) to require that each party ensures any regulations on labeling “accord treatment no less favourable than that accorded to like goods of national origin.”

Any rules on labeling that any of the CUSMA free trade bloc members impose in the future also must “not create unnecessary obstacles to trade between the parties.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post U.S. congressmen seek revival of mandatory COOL on beef appeared first on Farmtario.

During his Feb. 2 confirmation hearing of the Senate agricultural committee, Vilsack, who held the post during the entire Barack Obama administration, confirmed he is open to reintroducing COOL laws, if they comply with World Trade Organization standards. 

Why it matters: U.S. Country of Origin Labelling regulations were found to be inconsistent with WTO rules in 2015 because they unfairly punished Canadian and Mexican products, especially beef and pork.

COOL refers to laws requiring retailers to identify the country of origin for specific commodities.

“I’m happy to work with you and your staff on anything that would allow us to advance country-of-origin labelling,” Vilsack said during a back-and-forth with a Republican senator. “If there is a way to get WTO-compliant, I would be more than happy to work with you, and look forward to that.”

Not long after Obama was first elected in 2008, mandatory COOL was brought in by the United States Department of Agriculture, the agency directed by the secretary of agriculture. By 2015 it was struck down by the WTO, with Mexico and Canada successfully arguing the policy put cattle and pig producers in those countries at a disadvantage. 

According to the WTO’s ruling at that time, Canada would be able to put in retaliatory tariffs against the United States if similar COOL requirements are brought in under President Joe Biden; but Vilsack made clear he is cautious of the WTO’s previous decision.

The WTO’s dispute settlement process has been ineffective ever since former president Donald Trump refused to appoint someone to a vacant adjudicator position, leaving the body incapable of rendering decisions. 

Some countries, including Canada, have found temporary work arounds to settle disputes, but the potential reintroduction of controversial COOL laws in the U.S. would likely reinvigorate efforts by Canada, and others, to ensure the dispute resolution body is working effectively.

Biden’s administration has created cautious optimism the U.S. will become a more rules-based, multilateral trading nation with respect for international institutions like the WTO. 

But clearly Vilsack has not yet ruled out bringing back the controversial COOL laws. 

“I’m absolutely willing to listen to anybody and everybody who has an idea on how we can circumvent or get to a point where the WTO doesn’t slap it down, that creates retaliatory impacts on American agriculture,” he said. “I need help in that respect. We can ignore the WTO, but then we get the retaliation and that’s just not a good situation.”

During his hearing, he made clear getting into such a situation is not his intention, telling one senator he would not be introducing the same COOL laws that were in place four years ago. 

While Vilsack’s comments about COOL understandably garnered attention in Canada, most of his cordial confirmation hearing focused on other issues. 

The long-time Biden supporter made clear he shares the president’s vision for addressing climate change, telling senators he will harness the USDA’s “expertise in science and conservation to work with farmers, ranchers and forest owners to create new sources of income tied to their good climate practices.”

Vilsack, who has been serving as president of the U.S. Dairy Export Council since 2017, appeared to go out of his way during his testimony to encourage lawmakers to work with farmers on how best to create a carbon market that would benefit producers.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle unanimously confirmed Vilsack — Republicans and Democrats spoke glowingly of him — and a similar fate is expected after his Senate confirmation hearing. 

His appointment is not without criticism, however. 

Organizations representing Black farmers, and some civil rights groups, charge Vilsack failed to get rid of systematic racial discrimination taking place within the USDA. Early in his opening remarks, he addressed that criticism.

“I will take bold action and work with this committee to address discrimination in all its forms across USDA agencies, offices and programs. I will ensure all programming is equitable and work to root out generations of systemic racism that disproportionately affects Black, Indigenous and people of colour,” he said. “I will build the most diverse team in the department’s history, one that looks like America, and will extend that commitment across all USDA agencies and offices.”

The post Vilsack willing to help with WTO-compliant COOL appeared first on Farmtario.

The new clause would, in theory, checkmate a move made last summer by some Democrat members of the U.S. House of Representatives to have a new North American free trade pact revive the COOL meat-labeling program the Obama administration halted in 2015.

The three countries signed off on revisions made to the 2018 CUSMA pact at a Dec. 10, 2019 ceremony in Mexico City. The House of Representatives on Dec. 19 passed the revised version of CUSMA by a 385-41 vote. The deal is now before the U.S. Senate for consideration.

The revised CUSMA, as passed in the House, does include several other changes that had been sought by the House’s Democrat majority in the year since the Trump administration reopened and secured changes to the 36-year-old NAFTA pact.

Mexico’s Senate has already approved the revised pact, which still must also pass Canada’s Parliament.

In a statement via email on Dec. 19, an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada spokesperson said Ottawa “will continue to defend Canadian agricultural producers against any discriminatory labelling requirements that may contravene international trade obligations.”

That said, the AAFC spokesperson also noted the new CUSMA pact as approved by the House of Representatives “contains language that prohibits discriminatory labelling requirements.”

The revised pact’s text requires each party to the CUSMA deal to ensure regulations on labels “accord treatment no less favourable than that accorded to like goods of national origin.”

Any rules on labeling that the CUSMA nations impose in the future also must “not create unnecessary obstacles to trade between the parties.”

The revised CUSMA pact specifies that the language on labeling is included “in order to avoid disrupting North American trade” and is in keeping with the three countries’ obligations on technical barriers to trade (TBT).

The chance of a COOL law turning up in CUSMA appeared last summer when a group of House Democrats — among them high-profile rookie members such as Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib , Conor Lamb and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — wrote jointly to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer about CUSMA in June.

Their letter sought COOL’s revival as part of CUSMA, along with other changes to the pact’s labour, environment and pharmaceutical provisions.

Lost sales

COOL wasn’t part of the original NAFTA but was developed during the Clinton administration, passed near the end of the George W. Bush administration in 2008 and implemented during the Obama administration in 2009.

COOL imposed mandatory origin labels for beef, pork, lamb, chicken and goat meat and certain other perishable commodities where sold at retail in the U.S.

Canada and Mexico challenged COOL through U.S. courts and the World Trade Organization, because its rules, strictly applied, called for U.S. processors of meat from imported animals to provide labels that detailed where the specific animals involved were born, raised and slaughtered.

The costs involved in segregating animals and production lines to follow the label law prompted some U.S. packers and processors to restrict or halt their imports or cut the prices they paid for Canadian cattle and hogs.

Some estimates pegged Canadian cattle and hog producers’ losses to reduced prices and lost sales at over $8 billion.

After the WTO ruled in 2015 that COOL violated the United States’ international trade obligations, the Obama administration opted to repeal the label rules on beef and pork rather than face retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Mexico on U.S. goods. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Amended CUSMA pact includes anti-COOL clause appeared first on Farmtario.

A letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, dated Tuesday and signed by 27 freshman House Democrats, “reaffirm(s) our interest in working with you to improve the revised NAFTA deal” to which the U.S., Canada and Mexico agreed in November.

The letter repeats points made previously by House Democrats on labour and environmental standards and calls for elimination of “the new monopoly rights added to NAFTA 2.0 for pharmaceutical firms” which they said would “lock in high U.S. drug prices.”

The changes listed in the letter “are necessary for a renegotiated NAFTA to obtain the broad support it needs to pass” for its ratification in the House, the representatives wrote.

But the letter includes a new demand: “A final NAFTA package must restore the country-of-origin (COOL) meat-labeling program passed by Congress and affirmed by U.S. courts.”

The letter goes on to allege Canada and Mexico “already have used trade rules to undermine the food labeling that America’s farmers and ranchers support and the transparency that consumers demand.”

COOL was not part of the original NAFTA but was developed during the Clinton administration, passed near the end of the George W. Bush administration in 2008 and implemented during the Obama administration in 2009.

COOL imposed mandatory origin labels for beef, pork, lamb, chicken and goat meat and certain other perishable commodities where sold at retail in the U.S.

Canada and Mexico challenged COOL through U.S. courts and the World Trade Organization, because its rules, strictly applied, called for U.S. processors of meat from imported animals to provide labels that detailed where the specific animals involved were born, raised and slaughtered.

The added costs of segregating animals and production lines to produce the information for such labels prompted some U.S. processors to restrict or halt their imports or cut the prices they paid for Canadian cattle and hogs. Some estimates pegged Canadian cattle and hog producers’ losses to reduced prices and lost sales at over $8 billion.

After the WTO ruled in 2015 that COOL violated the United States’ international trade obligations, the U.S. opted to repeal the label rules rather than face retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Mexico on U.S. goods.

Signatories on Tuesday’s letter include high-profile Democrats such as Ilhan Omar (Minnesota), Rashida Tlaib (Michigan), Conor Lamb (Pennsylvania) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), among others.

The Alberta government, in a statement Friday, responded to the House Democrats’ letter with “strong opposition.”

Federal and provincial governments, along with industry in both the U.S. and Canada “spent nearly a decade fighting for the repeal of COOL on beef and pork products,” the province said.

“The members of Congress pushing this need to realize it isn’t something industry in Canada or the U.S. want to revisit,” provincial Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen said Friday in the province’s release.

“It isn’t consistent with American trade obligations, and it isn’t good for farmers in either country who want a fair and predictable trade relationship.”

The Alberta government called for “quick adoption” of the revised Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement (CUSMA) “as negotiated,” describing it as “fundamental to the Canada-U.S. trade relationship.” Mexico’s government has already ratified the deal and Ottawa has pledged to follow suit.

The “failed” mandatory COOL law would add “billions in additional costs for both Canadian and U.S. industries, with no measurable consumer benefit,” the province said. “As a result, U.S. consumers would pay higher prices for their beef and pork.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Rookie U.S. House Democrats call for COOL revival appeared first on Farmtario.

They’re not ignoring the possibility of trade disruptions in the U.S., said Ryder Lee, CEO of the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association — “but neither are we lighting our hair on fire yet at each proposal you catch wind of.”

Lee expects to hear plenty of proposals between now and the Jan. 20 inauguration, and even through the next year. “And a lot of the things we’ll hear now are kind of spitballs. They’re waiting to see what sticks and what doesn’t.”

It’s certainly not the beef industry’s first rodeo. The sector has worked for years to reopen borders shut since the first case of BSE was found in an Alberta cow in 2003. And Canada only recently had mandatory country-of-origin labelling (COOL) struck down by the World Trade Organization.

“It’s a garden that needs tending all the time,” Lee said of trade issues such as COOL. But Canada has many staffers in Ottawa and D.C. who learned the ropes during BSE, he said.

Some newly elected officials and their staff also likely have some catching up to do, he acknowledged.

The SCA, however, sends money to the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association “to have those people on the ground, to have those relationships so that they’re not making it up as they go. They don’t have to. Cattle producers’ voices are heard there and understood.”

Those staffers are already talking to members of Congress and administration officials in D.C., Lee said, as well as people connected to Trump’s transition team.  In fact, firing up COOL again might already have proved to be “a bit of a lead balloon,” he said.

Lee’s basing that hope on a recent article from MeatingPlace.com, which reported Trump’s agricultural advisory committee has already talked the transition team out of reinstating COOL.

The push for COOL was coming from beef producers at a recent meeting organized by R-CALF, the South Dakota Stockgrowers’ Association and the Independent Beef Association of North Dakota, MeatingPlace reported.

Trade actions such as COOL are always a risk, Lee said. “But the nice thing about that one is it’s fresh enough everybody knows what happened at the WTO, what our retaliation list is.”

Bilateral deals

It looks like “the sun is setting” on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), said Lee. A Canadian government official has said Canada has until February 2018 to make a final decision on walking away from the deal, the Toronto Star reports.

Trump, however, has promised to drop the multilateral deal between 12 Pacific Rim nations, effectively killing it.

Canada could follow New Zealand’s lead, passing TPP at home to send a signal that we’re not talking protectionism, Lee said.

“The jewel of TPP for us was catching up on access to Japan,” said Lee. Canada had started negotiating a bilateral agreement with Japan, and TPP’s demise could add “a little more fuel to it,” he added.

Ultimately, Lee would like to see better access to Japan’s high-value market for Canadian beef. “Australia has about an 11 per cent advantage into Japan for beef exports. That’s more than your profit a lot of the time.”

Mexico is also an important market for Canadian beef, and China has “exploded” for the industry as Canada has gotten better access, Lee said.

Beyond that, markets depend on cuts, what kind of value chains are set up, which processor is involved, and how they’ll be supplying that business throughout the year.

But while Canada’s beef industry supplies other markets, the U.S. remains an important trading partner.

“A lot of the time it’s our home market that’s most important,” Lee said. “And the U.S., we can service it fresh and on a truck. So those two are always the biggest ones.”

— Lisa Guenther is a field editor for Grainews and Country Guide based at Livelong, Sask. Follow her at @LtoG on Twitter.

The post Guenther: Canada’s beef export sector waiting, watching appeared first on Farmtario.

U.S. news network CNN reported on Tuesday that a memo drafted by President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, which it obtained, said the new administration would immediately initiate changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico. Those changes could include measures on country-of-origin labelling (COOL), CNN reported.

The U.S. COOL program required as of 2009 that retail outlets label food according to its origin. Canada and Mexico argued that COOL, repealed in December, led to fewer of their cattle and pigs being slaughtered in the U.S.

“We’re watching… and if we think it discriminates against our cattle, our recommendation is going to be that tariffs go into place immediately” on U.S. products, said John Masswohl, director of government and international relations for the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, which represents Canada’s 68,500 beef farms and feedlots.

The World Trade Organization last year authorized Canada to retaliate against the U.S. over COOL, setting the annual level at $1.055 billion.

Canada’s previous Conservative government listed in 2013 three dozen U.S. product categories that could be subject to a 100 per cent surtax, including pork, beef, cherries, appliance parts, chocolate, wine and office furniture, but none were imposed.

Alex Lawrence, spokesman for Canada’s Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, would not say if Canada is inclined to retaliate, adding Ottawa looks forward “to working very closely with the new administration and with the United States Congress, including on trade and investment.”

Until it’s clear how Trump might approach COOL, no action is necessary, Masswohl said.

“I don’t go around chasing ghosts,” Masswohl said. “If anything starts to become real, we’ll know well in advance.”

The Canadian Pork Council, which represents the country’s hog farmers, is taking a wait-and-see approach until it knows what changes, if any, the next U.S. government will make, said executive director John Ross.

— Rod Nickel is a Reuters correspondent covering the agriculture and mining sectors from Winnipeg.

The post Cattle producers urge trade fight if Trump revives COOL appeared first on Farmtario.

The AMS, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), published its amendments Wednesday in the U.S. Federal Register.

The changes, which took effect upon publication, mean U.S. retailers are no longer required to provide COOL information for beef and pork at the point of sale.

The amendments formalize Congress’ approval in December of an appropriations bill that repealed the COOL requirements in question, after which USDA stopped enforcing those requirements.

The changes follow a years-long challenge of mandatory COOL rules on beef and pork  at the World Trade Organization (WTO), which in December granted Canada and Mexico the authority to impose retaliatory tariffs on certain U.S. goods if the COOL rules on beef and pork weren’t removed.

Canada’s Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland and Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay said in a joint statement Wednesday they were reviewing AMS’ amendment, but generally described it as “a tremendously important development for our farmers and the economies of both our countries.”

In a separate statement, the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) said it was “satisfied” that the AMS amendment “should eliminate the need to segregate imported cattle in the U.S.”

That said, the CCA warned that Ottawa needs to retain the “retaliatory rights” granted by the WTO, as “insurance against the possibility that the U.S. might at some future time implement a renewed discriminatory program.”

Canada, the association said, “needs to be in a position to quickly impose tariffs on U.S. products” if such a proposal gains traction.

The CCA cited recent remarks by a U.S. senator from North Dakota calling for a voluntary COOL bill that the association believes “will necessitate segregation of imported cattle and hogs.”

The CCA didn’t name the senator, but Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat and member of the Senate agriculture committee, was recently quoted as saying current debates on U.S. food labelling could open up an opportunity to consider a voluntary COOL scheme.

Mandatory COOL, in place in the U.S. since 2009, was ruled out of order by the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) in 2011 and WTO Appellate Body in 2012 for discriminating against Canadian and Mexican livestock and meat.

Canada’s position on COOL has long been that while shoppers should be able to make informed decisions about the food they buy, the labelling rules in COOL led to substantial additional costs incurred by those in the U.S. meat supply chain, including producers, processors, distributors and retailers.

Said costs are incurred by businesses that COOL requires to segregate imported animals and meat from their U.S. counterparts at each step in the production process, while facilities that handle U.S. animals only wouldn’t incur any such additional costs.

AMS, in a separate release Feb. 29, noted mandatory COOL remains in place for chicken, lamb, goat, farmed and wild-caught fish and shellfish, “perishable agricultural commodities,” peanuts, pecans, macadamia nuts and ginseng. — AGCanada.com Network

The post U.S. COOL rules formally off beef, pork appeared first on Farmtario.