COOL legislation remains a mystery

(Resource News International) — Uncertainty surrounding the U.S. government’s plans this fall for mandatory country-of-origin-labelling (COOL) continues to confound the Canadian
livestock industry, a sector already reeling from the effects
of higher costs and lower prices.

Mandatory COOL “is still being debated and how it
actually ends up in its final stage will be hard to tell,” said Andrea Brocklebank, research analyst with CanFax, a
division of Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) in Calgary. “It
may change several times, over different phases, so until it’s
actually implemented and interpreted it’s hard to say what
kind of an impact it will have.”

Scheduled to take effect on Sept. 30 this year, mandatory COOL was
originally introduced as part of the 2002 U.S. Farm Bill. Its
implementation was delayed several times as its rules were
laid out and both the Canadian and U.S. livestock industries
expressed their opposition to it. Changes to the 2002 version
have been proposed but as it currently stands there is no
guarantee they will be adopted.

Mandatory COOL legislation will require meat (with the notable
exception of poultry) in the U.S. to be labelled with its
country of origin. The label received will depend on where the
animal is born, raised, fed, slaughtered and processed. It is
unclear however, how the labelling rules will be applied and
which labels will be used.

According to some experts, it’s possible that a “Product
of Canada and the U.S.” label will apply to most meat, in effect
cancelling out the need to segregate product. It’s also
possible, however, that retailers will demand strict separation
between products from the two countries, resulting in enormous
costs to both the U.S. and Canadian meat and livestock
industries.

Theresa Keddy, spokesperson for the CCA, said a study
done by the association in 2002, based on the original legislation, found
that in its first year of implementation mandatory COOL would cost the
Canadian cattle and beef industry an estimated C$200 million.

The Canadian livestock industry has asked the Canadian
government to challenge mandatory COOL on the basis that it violates
U.S. trade obligations under the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) and at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

“The government is saying they will keep the option to
challenge open, but for right now they have not made a decision
either way; they’re evaluating it,” Keddy said.

“I can assure you that the government continues to be disappointed
that the U.S. continues to move forward with this labelling
legislation,” said Stephen Lavergne, director of U.S. trade advocacy for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. “It is the government’s position that the existing
mandatory legislation that was put forward in 2002 is flawed
and we think it should be repealed.”

Furthermore, Lavergne said, “even if one were to assume that the fix to the 2002
statute occurs, it is our view that this is only an
incremental improvement. We continue to raise these concerns
to both administrations and in Congress. The Canadian
government expects that any legislation that the U.S. puts into
place will be fully consistent with their international trade
obligations.”