Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL)

On Jan. 9 the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held its oral arguments on the COOL lawsuit. In this lawsuit, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and its meatpacker friends are fighting to get rid of COOL. R-CALF USA along with SD Stockgrowers Assn., Food & Water Watch and Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) are interveners in the case to help protect COOL. During the oral arguments, a number of issues only raised by R-CALF USA and its partners were discussed. 

The battle of COOL is not over and everyone’s help is needed to win. Be sure to purchase Made-in-the USA foods and products, talk with store managers about your preference for USA items, and discuss this issue with friends and neighbors. It is illogical that we can know where the clothes we put on our body are from, but that other countries can prevent us from knowing the origin of food we put in our body.

Sheep

Recently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) issued the report on its investigation of the U.S. sheep market. The report determined that meatpackers did not manipulate the lamb market. Instead, it concluded that other factors, most notably the cost and availability of imported lamb, led both to the increase in lamb prices (2010 - mid-2011) and the long-term decrease in lamb prices (mid-201 – 2012).

R-CALF USA is deeply disappointed that GIPSA failed to acknowledge ongoing problems in the sheep market caused by meatpacker market power. For example, GIPSA ignores the fact that the sheep industry’s shrinking cash market is the industry’s only competition-based price discovery market. It also ignores the fact that meatpackers are causing that price discovery market to shrink by shifting more lambs into their non-competitive formula arrangements and by increasing their inventories of packer-owned lambs. Although the report rationalizes market changes based on retailers’ reactions, it indicates that no retailers were interviewed during the investigation. Instead, GIPSA apparently relied on statements by meatpackers to draw conclusions about retailers.

R-CALF USA has given several presentations on this report and on current issues impacting the sheep industry.

Checkoff

United States cattle producers are federally mandated to contribute $1 to the Beef Checkoff Program for every head of cattle they sell. This generates approximately $80 million each year and USDA is responsible for ensuring that producers’ mandatory contributions are lawfully expended for research and promotion of beef. The law prohibits Beef Checkoff funds from being used ‘in any manner” to lobby Congress.

According to R-CALF USA, the prohibition against using Beef Checkoff Program funds to lobby “in any manner” means checkoff funds cannot be used to subsidize any expenses, including the salaries of any employee that was involved in first formulating the decision to lobby against COOL and then in the execution of that decision as manifested by the letter that directly lobbied Congress to change the COOL statute.

R-CALF USA is solely funding by donations and member dues. For more info or to join go to http://www.r-calfusa.com, 406-252-2516.