COOL Final Descision

Some of you may remember my previous blog post about the COOL [Country of Origin Labeling]. In that post i referred to a final decision being made in the fall, well they finally made the decision.

The WTO [World Trade Organization] has ruled the United States' laws requiring mandatory country-of-origin labels on beef, pork and produce violate its commitments to global trade rules.

Canadian producers have been worried that the system of requiring all meat and perishable items be labeled form the country they originated from would become a trade stopper. Both Canada and Mexico have long contended that COOL violates international trade laws, restricts market access and is a technical trade barrier. Canada in late 2008 formally challenged COOL at the WTO.


The Canadian Cattlemen's Association noted in a release that Washington, in theory, could also just ignore the DSB panel's decision. Doing so, however, could eventually put Canada in a position to apply "retaliatory options," such as new or higher tariffs on imports from the U.S.

"This decision recognizes the integrated nature of the North American supply chain in this vitally important industry," Canada's International Trade Minister Ed Fast noted. "Removing onerous labeling measures and unfair, unnecessary costs will improve competitiveness, boost growth and help strengthen the prosperity of Canadian and American producers alike." 


This legislation is being a labelled a win for Canadian producers.

COOL

COOL stands for Country of Origin Labeling. This legislation has come in to affect for many good reasons. In May 2002, law in the US to label all meat and other perishable items with the country it orignated from. This is a way of tracking meat that has found to have a disease in later dates.

This all sounds good in theory, but it proved to be detrimental to Canadian farmers.This legislation forced American companies to make a decision; separate the Canadian and American meat when packaging foods, or reduce import from Canada and increase local supply. What do you think they chose? To decrease importing, to ensure they are labeling their products correctly.

Canada has been urging the World Trade Organization (WTO) to ban the legislation, as it is proving to be nothing but trouble. Recently, the WTO has ruled that COOL is in violation of the Technical Barriers to Trade. This is finally giving Canadian farmers a leg up on the trading industry. There is still a 30 day comment period, and the US government does have a chance to appeal the ruling. In the fall, there will be a public ruling making the decision final.

Canadian Cattlemen still believe the consumer has a right to know where their products have originated from, however the legislation of COOL is not the solution. It has acted not as a traceability tool, but more of a trade stopper then anything.


This is the first step to finding a real answer to the question of traceability on meat and other perishable food items.