Buyer Beware - 4 quarter processing

If you think your meat came from the U.S. you might be in for a surprise.

Congress has officially repealed country-of-origin labeling for meat.

Competition is already tough on our local meat producers, but now our government has caved in to Mexico and Canada, who were complaining for years that they weren’t being treated fairly. They were supported by the large industrial meat lobby who want to keep importing cattle from Mexico and Hogs from Canada without going through the labeling laws that had evolved since the COOL (Country of Origin Labeling) act of 2002.

So, what does this mean to you when you shop for meat? It’s simple. You won’t know where your meat was raised, slaughtered, or processed unless you purchase from your local meat processor or butcher.

Our small American farmers are now put at a greater disadvantage. First introduced in 2002, then again in 2009, country-of-origin labeling has been valuable to the small American farms that promote their livestock as being born and raised in the U.S. Consumers have agreed and local buying has increased. Witness the growing number of farmers’ markets that also sell meat.

Canada and Mexico were going to impose over $1 billion in tariffs on American goods sold in their countries. So, congress decided to stick it to local American meat producers.

Sure wish there was a nice way to say it, but that’s the truth.

Lawmakers quickly added the provision to the $1.15 billion spending bill passed last month, which has now passed into law. In plain English it’s called “deceive the consumer, they’ll get over it”.

Here’s a quote from: Roger Johnson of the National Farmers Union, who said the group was “furious” about the repeal. “Packers will be able to once again deliberately deceive consumers,” Johnson said.