Posted by: Phillip Fraas
August 08, 2007
Topic: REPORTS ON FARM BILL STATUS--Second Half of 2007

Two government programs relating to animal agriculture have been the subject of discussion recently in connection with the drafting of the 2007 farm bill: country-of-origin labeling ("COOL") and the national animal identification system ("NAIS"). Break-through amendments to the COOL law were included in the version of the farm bill passed by the House of Representatives on July 27, and I have gotten several inquiries about whether NAIS provisions will be included in the farm bill.

NAIS NOT IN THE FARM BILL: USDA's national animal identification system, in operation as a voluntary program for several years now, is designed to facilitate rapid and effective animal disease traceback. It has three components: premises registration, animal identification, and tracing. Over 406,000 premises have been registered to date.

While NAIS has been the subject of debate in agriculture, the House-passed farm bill did not include any provision dealing with the matter. The Senate won't draft its version of the farm bill until September or October, and we don't know yet whether it will include a NAIS provision.

It is worth noting that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released an audit of the NAIS program identifying several issues of concern and suggesting that implementation of the program needs improvement, but made no recommendations for legislation on the program. You can review the GAO report by going to www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-592.

COOL IS IN THE FARM BILL: The 2002 farm bill included a provision requiring retailers other than restaurants to label meat, fish, perishable commodities, and peanuts by country of origin. This turned out to be controversial, especially for meat products, so that the requirements were never implemented. However, just before the farm bill was taken up by the House of Representatives last month, a compromise was reached by the warring parties on the issue, and the compromise was included in the House-passed bill. If the compromise holds together, the same language likely will be added to the Senate version as well and COOL finally will be implemented.

The labeling rules under the compromise include the following:

--Beef, lamb, pork, and goat meat can be labeled by a retailer as exclusively having a U.S. origin only if the animal from which it is derived in fact is exclusively born, raised, and slaughtered in the United States or was present in the U.S. on or before January 1, 2008.

If an animal is born, raised, or slaughtered in the U.S. but not exclusively so, the retailer can designate the origin of meat from the animal as all of the countries in which the animal was born, raised, or slaughtered.

---If an animal is brought into the United States for immediate slaughter, the retailer must designate the origin of meat from the animal as the country of import and the United States.

--For meat from all other animals (that is, not born, raised, or slaughtered in the U.S.), the retailer must designate a country other than the U.S. as country of origin.

--For ground beef, pork, and lamb, the country of origin notice must include a list of all countries of origin or a list of all reasonably possible countries of origin.

--The rules governing fish, perishable agricultural commodities, and peanuts remain essentially the same as under current law. A U.S. country-of-origin designation can be given only if the fish is hatched and raised (if farm-raised), harvested, and processed in the U.S., or if the perishable commodity or peanut is produced in the U.S. The House farm bill, however, will allow the labeling of U.S. perishable commodities by state, region, or locality.

News

Farm Bill Update: COOL Is In, NAIS Is Not

News

Environment

Topics

Recent Updates

Archives

Web Resources