Don Puder / The Times-News, Twin Falls, Idaho / April 17, 2000
Apr. 17--Consumers want labeling, according to Idaho Rep. Helen
Chenoweth-Hage, citing data from a poll she commissioned from Wirthlin
Worldwide in which 78 percent of consumers endorse the concept.
Chenoweth-Hage's bill calling for country-of-origin labeling for meat
products was defeated last year, she said, due to a lobbying effort by
meatpackers and a prominent trio of power brokers. But the legislator is
confident it's only a matter of time before consumers will demand the
labelling.
"Four companies -- Iowa Beef Processors (IBP), ConAgra, Cargill and
Farmland -- slaughter and process 80 percent of U.S. livestock. When four
companies have control of market pricing, it's our independents that lose,"
she said.
Rancher Mike Callicrate agree.
"Your major meatpackers are big powerhouses that search the world for the
cheapest source of everything," he said The St. Francis, Kan., cattleman
rancher is one of 10 ranchers whose suit against IBP -- charging the
company with operating a monopoly in the meatpacking industry -- comes to
trial this year.
"IBP is the biggest packer in the world, slaughtering 38 percent of the
steers and heifers in the U.S. They lead the way and the others follow"
Callicrate said. "It (labeling) will expose what these big companies are
doing. They're blending beef from five different countries in the same
pound of hamburger that you and your kids will eat."
Sarah Braasch of Boise, executive vice president of the Idaho Cattle
Association, said, "There are separate issues here. Consumers definitely
want, and have the right, to know the origin of the meat they are eating,
but legislative action may not be the answer. I believe that voluntary
labeling through a cooperative effort involving the livestock growers,
processors, retailers and the USDA is the better way to go."
Braasch cited a recent meeting that she attended in Washington, D.C., in
which the various branches of the beef industry demonstrated a willingness
to work together.
But she points to another problem as well, something that has confused the
consumers is the USDA's labeling of imported beef and other meat products.
"When consumers read the USDA labels, which indicate quality grades such as
USDA Choice or USDA Prime, they often assume that the meat was grown and
processed in the U.S.," she said USDA's practice of grading imported beef
does not follow congressional intent, and should be halted immediately.
"The USDA grading of imported beef not only misinforms the American
consumers and places U.S. cattle producers at a competitive disadvantage in
the domestic marketplace, it also goes against the Agricultural Marketing
Act of 1946, which governs meat packing and grading," said an NCBA spokesman.
NCBA President George Hall, a cattle producer from Mustang, Okla., said "
The USDA neither had or has the authority to make regulations allowing
imported beef to be stamped with the USDA grade. There are areas of the
grading regulations implemented under the act that are not being properly
applied or enforced."
NCBA's most recent request, sent to Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman,
follows an earlier petition by the NCBA in June 1999, asking the USDA to
end the use of U.S. quality grades on imported beef carcasses. USDA has
released a notice of proposed rule-making on the issue.
The issue involving the blending of hamburger from several countries of
origin with those of the U.S. involves both the country of origin problem
and the concern over the cleanliness of the meat, in light of recent
bacterial outbreaks in U.S. fast food outlets, according to Greg Garatea,
president of the Idaho Cattle Association.
"This blending problem is a dicey one, a kind of catch-22 situation," he
said. "You have a huge consumer demand for hamburger in the U.S., and more
often than not, U.S. producers cannot keep up with the demand. The result
is that imported lean ground meat must take up the slack, and so you have
the desire for U.S. produced ground beef but an inadequate supply that must
be supplemented by imported beef."
Regarding health concerns in using imported beef and its blending with U.S.
beef, Garatea said, "Actually the inspection of and treatment of hamburger
beef has greatly improved. Irradiation is really effective. It is
relatively easy to send a package of ground beef through the irradiation
process and be assured that it will be free of E.coli and other bacterial
contaminants, so that you'll be eating safe hamburger at home or at the
fast food places."
(posted without permission)
