COOL means possible new border disruption
Last month’s decision by the Canadian government to approach the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) is a much appreciated second visit to the WTO on behalf of beef producers in as many months.
The first came after a five year stand-off with South Korea over Korea’s unwillingness to reopen its borders to Canadian beef despite reopening its borders to American beef. Both countries were given the “controlled risk” status for beef by the WTO in 2007 but this new ruling impacted only the U.S./Korea relationship. That battle continues.
More than ever Manitoba cattle producers are being directly affected by decisions made by governments around the world. Right now the Government of Canada is fighting on behalf of producers across Manitoba and Canada. We applaud Ottawa’s approach, but at the same time we see this as more evidence that our provincial industry needs federally-inspected beef slaughtering and processing capacity here in Manitoba.
We continue to work with both Federal and Provincial representatives to ensure they understand the importance of the policy decisions they’re making this year. COOL would only make it harder for Canadian producers to ship their animals to the U.S. We need to make sure there are domestic options for our producers and that those domestic options remain viable.
“We are concerned with the approach the United States is taking to implement COOL and the negative impact it is having on our exporters,” International Trade Minister Stockwell Day said in a news release. “Recent instructions from the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture encouraging the U.S. industry to use very strict labelling practices have removed the flexibility previously envisioned in the legislation and this affects the ability of our cattle and hog exporters to compete fairly in the U.S. market.”
“We are standing up for Canadian producers as we always have, and always will,” said Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. “COOL is having a significant negative impact on the Canadian livestock industry and we are taking the necessary steps to ensure that our producers are treated fairly.”
In addition to the COOL issue, there is a growing trade imbalance on cattle and beef with how the United States and Canada both treat the disposal of specified risk material: differences in legislation give U.S. packing plants as much as a $100 per animal advantage (by some estimates) over their Canadian rivals. The result means it’s more difficult for Canadian plants to compete, further endangering our domestic packing capacity. So both our producers and our packers are being hurt by these ongoing trade issues.
Keystone Processors is well advanced in our plans to create a new federally-inspected plant here in Manitoba. We believe Manitoba beef is among the best in the world and we want to help build a strong industry here to market that beef to the world.
We encourage the Government of Canada to keep up the good work it is doing on the international level and to continue to address local issues at the same time.
Export markets, Government policy, Manitoba cattle, Uncategorized
