The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and National Cattlemen’s Beef Assn (NCBA) are controlled by multinational and/or foreign owned meat processing companies. Those companies have an interest in unlimited imports of cattle and hogs, regardless of safety, to depress the U.S. market prices. They are front groups claiming to represent U.S. producers, and spend lots of time and lobbying resources convincing politicians that American producers and consumers don’t really want to know where their food comes from. [Michael Stumo]
Reposted from Pork Network
******
Pork, beef producers fear retaliation from COOL appeal
Rick Jordahl | March 26, 2012 | Pork Network
Fearing retaliation from Canada and Mexico against U.S. pork and beef imports, the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) have expressed concerns about the Obama Administration’s appeal over last week’s World Trade Organization finding on a U.S. meat labeling law.
Late last week, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative opted to appeal the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling on the U.S. Country-of-Origin-Labeling (COOL) law claiming that it provided less favorable treatment to Canadian and Mexican livestock producers.
“NPPC is urging the Obama administration and Congress to resolve the issue to avoid damaging retaliation from Canada and Mexico against U.S. pork products,” according to a NPPC press release. NPPC opposed the country-of-origin-labeling law (COOL) when it was being considered by Congress because of potential trade implications as well as costs, which far outweigh any benefits, according to NPPC.
In 2011, Mexico became the second market to import more than $1 billion in U.S. pork in a single year, according to the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF). For the year, pork exports to Mexico jumped 6 percent in value over 2010, reaching $1.04 billion.
NCBA Vice President Bob McCan issued the following statement. “We are very disappointed in this decision. An appeal is the wrong answer and a waste of valuable resources. This appeal will do nothing but escalate tension with our valuable trade partners and will prolong an issue that could be resolved quickly.”
Canada was the leading destination for U.S. beef in 2011, reaching $1.03 billion – a 41 percent increase over 2010, according to USMEF. Mexico was the volume pacesetter at 256,938 metric tons, with export value totaling $985 million.
According to McCan, NCBA will engage with Canada and Mexico in order to prevent any retaliatory action that could occur from this unfortunate decision made by the U.S. government.
Meanwhile, National Farmers Union (NFU) President Roger Johnson expressed NFU’s support to appeal the WTO ruling against the U.S. implementation of the COOL law. “NFU has been an ardent proponent for COOL from its inception,” said Johnson. “We will refuse to accept the WTO’s recent decision without a vigorous fight and are pleased the USTR has taken the same stance.”
So….. the globalists are at their same old games of scaring groups into working against the truth of their product. Isn’t this how the whole pink slime fiasco grew to cause the damage it did to the meat packers? At least Patrick Boyle did admit that it would create the need for 1.5 million additional cattle to cover the pink slime sales lost to their intentional fraud on consumers.
Money isn’t just “free speech” it is bought spin by those who can afford it. What is astounding to me is that so many people go along with the spin and fear.
If you have to lie about where your product comes from, perhaps you should spend a little more money on your reputation instead of continually coming up with schemes to defraud the public both here and in global trading. Perhaps the issue isn’t as much about the country it is coming from but the crooks in the biz who will sell the likes of pink slime as food for people instead of in dog food.
Perhaps these countries’ people are scared of the shenanigans of the US meat packers and what they are able to get away with. Information on who you are dealing with in biz does affect the decision to do biz with them.
How many of these foreign country’s people will look at the pink slime issue and wonder if meat packers are trying to sell pink slime to them after they have practically been banned by consumers and retailers in the U.S. for these frauds.
Don’t consumers have the right to know who is behind the product so they can determine on their own with relevant recent facts whether the product is “wholesome and nutritious” rather than just taking the globalist’s government backed hiding of this information?
It is time everyone involved started holding integrity in their product above the profits from hiding substandard products behind government dictates bought by the likes of the meat packers.
If we don’t do this, the least cost product will capture the market. It may be deadly least cost melamine in dog food from China or pink slime in the U.S. food chain— just so the cheaters in the economy can capture their respective economy by continual fraudulent activity.
More and more people are seeing who and how the people running the industry are operating. They are wary and will vote with their consumer dollars to avoid the risks of dealing with such industry characters who have captured sound reasoning and sound reputation because of nothing less than greed.
The biggest enemy of the AMI is the AMI itself. They are scared to death that if the consumer knows who is providing the product then they will discount it because of that reputation. That is why they hide behind the government’s proclamations they have bought that their food product is safe.
They are scared that educated people won’t be buying it—and they shouldn’t.
I wonder if Congress’s food service uses pink slime meat and if not, how can they justify selling it to our school children?
People are beginning to see through the paid for spin that the financial services industry and groups like the meat packers push. It would be nice if the people in those industries would stand up for their reputations instead of going with management’s lies for profit. A lot of Wall Street people would still be employed, the cattle producers would have had another 1.5 million head of cattle demanded (Patrick Boyle’s own quote) along with selling a higher quality product instead of pink slime, and other countries wouldn’t have to put up with the elite perpetrating these kind of frauds on them.
What was the WTO thinking when they made this ruling? —-Has the big money infiltrated their judgment too? I think we all know the answer to that one.
Tom T.
Amen, Tom! I’m not a food producer but have traveled and visited places that do (around the globe). What I’ve seen is nothing short of appalling. My travels have made me keenly interested in where my food comes from……….
If more Americans traveled to South America or Europe and saw that people in those countries are so much healthier than they are here due to the quality of the food primarily, they might wake up. I am appalled at the globalists and the toxins that they are putting in our food chain.