The General Manager of Manitoba Pork is expressing concern over the latest U.S. efforts to restore Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling.
Mandatory U.S. Country of Origin Labeling, which required the segregation of Canadian and American origin cattle and pigs at processing, came into effect in 2009 and ended in 2015 following a successful World Trade Organization challenge by Canada and Mexico and was ultimately replaced by a voluntary program.
Manitoba Pork General Manager Can Dahl observes the voluntary program reestablishes segregation.
What this has done is require any animal or any product that carries the product of the USA label on the grocery shelf now has to come from an animal that was born, raised, processed in the United States. That’s a significant shift. Again, it’s introducing the cost of segregation into the system.
Ultimately, when we get those increased in processing costs, that’s something that will eventually be seen on the grocery shelf. But we’re also seeing pressure to shift that voluntary Country of Origin Labeling at this point because you don’t have to use the product of the USA label to shift that back to the Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling.
We saw that recently. There was a bill passed in the Agriculture Committee of the U.S. Senate that would reintroduce Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling for beef. But from where I sit, it would be naive to think that if Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling is introduced for beef that pork isn’t coming close behind. This is something that we’re following very closely and we’re very concerned about.
~ Cam Dahl, Manitoba Pork
Dahl believes government and industry need to come up with creative solutions such as a product of Canada and the U.S. label or a product of North America label that satisfies the concerns of consumers to know where their food is coming from, while not interrupting our North American integrated market.
