Stockgrowers react to COOL ruling - KOTA Territory News

Stockgrowers react to COOL ruling

The World Trade Organization has issued their final ruling on the case brought by Canada and Mexico against the U.S. mandatory Country of Origin Labeling law (COOL) for beef and pork and appealed by the United States.

Like the original decision, the appellate ruling upholds the right of the United States to require COOL and reversed the original ruling which stated that U.S. COOL laws were too restrictive and caused barriers to trade. The appellate panel did not rule, thereby upholding, the lower panels finding that specific rules for implementing COOL and labeling beef and pork did cause restrictive barriers and imposed burdens on Canadian cattle.

"There is a lot to be positive about in this ruling. We now know we have COOL and the appellate panel did uphold our right to provide labeling information to our customers. Stockgrowers has fought long and hard to see COOL implemented in the United States and I think this ruling confirms the principle and the right to label our products and let our customers decide the origin of the food that is on their dinner plate," said Shane Kolb, President of SD Stockgrowers from Meadow.

"Of course Stockgrowers is frustrated with the decision by the WTO panels to strike down certain rules within the COOL law, and we definitely don't like to see an international court override rules made by the United States for our citizens. However, now that we have a final ruling, we can get to work fixing the concerns in our COOL rules and working to strengthen COOL for our customers." 

The part of the Country of Origin Labeling rule that the appellate ruling strikes down is a section of the rule that governs how meat products are segregated and labeled. Canada and Mexico successfully argued that the rule for segregating livestock at slaughter created additional costs to the imported livestock and thereby created an unfair bias against those food items. The ruling also impacts the process for labeling meat of mixed origin. 

"At this point, we know that we have Country of Origin Labeling and we know that we have the right to continue that law. That's all good news," said Kolb. The details of how we create the label are obviously going to need some adjustment. Stockgrowers are committed to making sure that COOL works for both our customers and our producers and we're going to do all we can to make sure that happens," said Kolb.