Country of Origin Labeling

Jeff Pastoor, Senior Cattle Consultant, Land O’Lakes

There has been a lot of discussion and confusion on mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) since it became part of the Farm Bill this year.  It is difficult to describe the new law in both a clear and a concise fashion, but we will attempt that here with some links to supporting information for more details.

What the law requires is that as of October 1, 2004 all fresh beef sold at retail must be labeled as to where the animal was born, where it was raised, and where it was slaughtered.  Fresh pork, fruits and vegetables are also covered by the law.

Restaurant and food service meat is not covered by the law, but don’t plan on a good market for non-verified cattle through this route – the packers and fabricators will have added work and costs to keep this meat segregated and they will probably be buying these cattle at a discount.

The packers and the retailers may have much more stringent record keeping requirements than the producers.  Now, before gloating over their misfortune realize that we will be paying the price for this extra paperwork one way or another through lower bids on cattle or higher retail prices to the consumer.  In this article we will concentrate on what producers will likely have to do to be in compliance.  A complete list of the segment by segment requirements from the USDA can be viewed here.

The beef not only needs to be labeled, but every package of beef in the meat counter must have the ability to trace back from the retailer, to the wholesaler, to the fabricator, to the packer, to the feedlot, to the stocker or backgrounder, and to the cow/calf producer (to see a diagram, click here).

In short, what this means is that those that produce or feed calves will have to keep more records so that the origin can be traced and verified.  Cattle slaughtered after Oct 1, 2004 will include some of the calves born this spring as well as breeding stock, so this means keeping those records now and not later.

The law requires that a third party must be able to audit and verify the paper trail of the cattle under penalty of law, with fines up to $10,000 per violation.  Violations will most likely be found at the retail/wholesale level, but they will be quick to point the finger upstream to the source of the beef so the risk for producers is very real.  Packers will most likely make cattle feeders sign a document that states all of the cattle bought have complete and accurate records behind them.  This will go back through the chain so that cow-calf producers will also have to guarantee to their buyers that records are complete and accurate.  As for the third party auditor, the USDA has considered using the IRS for this.

The law is not yet clear on exactly what records must be kept, but we need to start keeping verification records now for cattle that will be slaughtered after the October 1, 2004 deadline.  As a minimum, producers should have cows and calves tagged and calving records kept so that they can be verified as the source of these calves.

Examples of records that could be used in an audit include:

Fortunately, many of these records are already being kept and simply may need to be better organized so that the auditor can easily verify the calves.

Even though the Farm Bill has made Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling the law, the final regulations are not yet in place.  We may have an opportunity yet through our lawmakers to make recordkeeping for COOL more workable. The USDA is planning on twelve Listening Sessions across the country to explain the law and get more public input.  The planned locations of the meetings are: California, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.  So be looking for more information on these meetings and try to attend your closest meeting to express your opinions.

For a more detailed summary of COOL, there is an article from the NCBA here including some excellent Q&A.