Montana Country of Origin Labeling discussed at MCA meeting

Press release

The Montana Cattlemen’s Association hosted a discussion on Montana Country of Origin Labeling at its annual meeting Dec. 8 in Lewistown Montana.

MCA Vice President Wally Congdon moderated the panel and said MCA shall be advocating for the passage of MT-COOL.

He said MT-COOL was first adopted in 2005 but that bill had a sunset clause for when a National COOL was adopted, which happened in 2008. However, Congress rescinded COOL in 2015, leaving Montana without a labeling law.

Consumers and cattle producers overwhelmingly support COOL, a release about the meeting said, so MCA along with the Montana Farmers Union and the Northern Plains Resource Council shall be advocating for restoration of MT-COOL.

Congdon said the current draft of MT-COOL is very closely modeled on the 2005 law. The main addition is a clause defining what can be marketed as meat, beef, pork, lamb and poultry to prevent “fake meat” from using those terms.

Northern Plains spokesperson Gilles Stockton said that the organization was formed in 1972 by farmers and ranchers whose property was threatened by the North Central Power Study that called for massive strip mining and multiple coal fired power plants situated throughout southeastern Montana. The issue was compounded by the fact that many property owners in that part of Montana owned the surface rights but the mineral rights had been reserved by the Northern Pacific Railroad. Montana law favors mineral owners who can legally condemn the surface for their mining purposes. Northern Plains was founded on the principles of protecting property rights along with the cultural and economic integrity of Montana’s rural communities.

The organization was part of the coalition advocating for MT-COOL in 2005 and will also be advocating for MT-COOL in this coming Legislative session.

MFU’s Chris Christiaens said both the National Farmers Union and the MFU has long supported COOL both on the Montana and national level. MFU was part of the supporting coalition in 2005 and is anxious to lend their influence for the restoration of MT-COOL, he said. He said all imported products and foods, except for beef and pork, are required to have a country of origin label, so it makes no sense that local products don’t.

The third panel member, Barnett Sporkin-Morrison representing the Food and Ag Development Center, said he is skeptical about MT-COOL actually performing as livestock producers believe it would. He based his argument on three main points: the lack of a National Livestock Identification System; the conviction that beef producers should not be opposing other aspects of agriculture such as pulse growers; and market research that shows that consumers may be in favor of labeling but will not pay more for U.S.-produced beef.

A debate from the packed crowd and panel members followed his presentation.

The sense of the discussion was:

NAIS: Members said people should not confuse animal identification for marketing purposes with identification for veterinary surveillance. It is true that some consumers would like information about the farm or ranch of origin of their beef purchase, but meeting that preference should be a marketing option by producers engaged in a “branded beef program,” they said, adding that no reason exists for the U.S. government to require all producers provide farm of origin information for no compensation. It was further noted that COOL was working very well without NAIS until it was rescinded in 2015. It was simply a matter of tracking the 20 percent of beef that was being imported rather than the 80 percent that was domestically produced.

Others said that, apparently, pulse growers are very concerned about the wording of policies meant to define what is meat and what are meat-like substitutes derived from vegetable proteins. The pulse growers were vocal at the MFU annual meeting, saying the MFU policy was not discriminatory to the pulse growers. Someone in the audience pointed out that cattle producers are not telling anyone to not eat foods derived from beans, but they should not be allowed to call it meat or beef.

Other discussion was about the Country of Origin Label that was required starting in 2011 and stopped in 2015. In that short time, it looked as though COOL was having a positive influence on the market, people at the meeting said. Cattle prices certainly crashed after COOL was rescinded in 2015.

Congdon said a small market preference study in Nebraska showed that consumer preference went up for beef originating in the U.S., Canada and Australia while beef from Central America and South America went down.

People at the meeting also discussed why the meat packers and their captive organizations, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Pork Producers Council, were so opposed to COOL. They fought it from its first inception in 2002 until they were finally successful in killing COOL in 2015. Someone from the audience quipped, “Follow the money.”

State Sen. Al Olszewski of Kalispell has requested the Montana Legislative Services Division review the MT-COOL draft. It is expected that both Republican and Democrat Legislators will sponsor the bill.

The release said that MCA, MFU and Northern Plains all encourage their members, concerned producers and beef consumers contact their local legislator and insist that they vote for this bill.