Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

You want to talk about an abrupt change in the weather, that is sure what has happened around here. No rain yet, damn the bad luck, but cooler weather abounds. Last week through Sunday it was low to upper 90's every day and since Monday I don't think it has gotten above 90. It's so damn cool i have to wear a jacket in the morning and keep it on till noon. That is an abrupt change. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I like the cooler temps. It's more comfortable and the fire danger is lessened. It's not over, but it is lessened. I will admit the temperatures are a little below normal for August around here so that may be why it feels so cool. Usually it is September before it drops this much. I have to laugh, because in the spring when it gets to the 70's I complain it is too hot and now it all of a sudden drops to the 70's and I feel cold.

Another abrupt change in my life is my new glasses. My new ones finally came in yesterday. I have been having trouble reading for a while now and I knew it was going to happen, bifocals. Damn, I hope I get used to these things. I had a headache all afternoon after getting them and it feels like one is coming on this morning all ready. I can at least read now but my medium distances are screwed up. I'm going to give it a week or so before I complain but this is miserable.

One last abrupt change. My son, through My darling Wife, got me an early birthday present. A lighted keyboard. I guess they got tired of hearing me complain that i couldn't see the board to type early in the morning. It sure is nice. With the glasses and the light, i can see to type. What a difference it makes.

I just wish there would be one more abrupt change and rain would pour out of the sky but that is not in the forecast, damn the bad luck. I'll take the cooler weather though and suffer through the glasses and enjoy the keyboard.

The more things change, the more they are the same. Alphonse Karr

I got an interesting e-mail from the Montana Cattleman's Association (MCA) on the status of COOL in Congress and i wanted to share part of it.

After five years of constant fighting, agricultural and meat industry groups have struck a compromise on mandatory country origin labeling.

Following a day of negotiating among industry officials, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., announced the agreement as a dramatic conclusion while the Agriculture Committee capped off its work on the 2007 farm bill Thursday night. ......

The penalties and the paperwork to prove the origin of an animal were relaxed to create a more workable law. Only the most egregious offenders will likely face stiff penalties under the new deal.

"We've taken out the huge penalties and that sort of thing and made a more realistic situation," Peterson said.

I explained my feelings on the COOL law the other day. This agreement appears to cover one of my bigger concerns, the paperwork required for the system. Reducing that will reduce the cost of the system to the producer and consumers of beef so this is a good thing. I will withhold judgment on this until I actually see what the requirements are. Sometimes what people claim is a little over the top of what reality brings us so I've learned to dampen my enthusiasm for things until I actually see them with my own two eyes.

I really don't think this compromise fixes the COOL law. It might make it a little better, hopefully my costs will be less this way, but I still don't think it will help the US cattle producer significantly. This compromise still doesn't address the fact that COOL has nothing to do with food safety like the supporters claim. There is a false pretense here that they are selling to the consumer that I feel could come back and bite us in the butt. Maybe once COOL is in effect and consumers don't see the COOL labels in restaurants and on poultry they will rise up in anger and change things. Pigs fly to don't you know. The large majority of consumers won't care one wit about this in the long run. All they will care about is the price they pay. If this causes it to go up they will howl with complaint.

Compromise: An agreement between two men to do what both agree is wrong. Lord Edward Cecil

UPDATE: Here is a story on the compromise.

I've been staying out of the recent fray about COOL being waged by NCBA, AMI, R-Calf, and USCA. I've been really busy and haven't wanted to deal with the situation. The law is here and I have to pay the costs of it, so why argue about it. R-Calf and USCA are very aggressively pushing for it and AMI doesn't want it and NCBA is lukewarm about the situation. Google around and you can find out about the battle going on if you really want. What I wanted to do was talk about my take on this situation.

If you've read here very long you will know I reluctantly support COOL. I support it because the public has the right to know where their meat comes from, but reluctantly because it is going to cost the producers and consumers of beef a lot of money to do this. The consumer will be paying more for the information provided and I as a producer will relieve less money for my critters and have to provide some amount of ungodly amount of information to the supply chain to prove the cattle were born in the US. These in my opinion are fact.

I know people will say that it will bring me money. They base this on the fact that consumers in surveys say that if they had the choice, they would buy US Beef. Sorry,I don't buy it. What consumers do and what they say they will do can be two different things. Fine they say they would purchase US Beef, but what would they do when confronted with the situation? Say you had some consumers in your average Wally World looking at the meat counter at some ground beef. Half of the ground beef prominently displays a label, US Beef, and the other half displays a label of Country Of Origin, Unknown. Now these consumers look at the beef and there is absolutely no visual difference in the beef, they look the same to the untrained lay persons eye. Then they look at the price. They see the price of the US Beef is say 20 cents a pound more expensive than the Unknown beef. This is a reasonable number for cost due to the massive amounts of paperwork that is going to be required by the government or meat packing plants for COOL. So here we have consumers faced with meat that looks the same to them but that has a significant price difference do to a little sign that says where it comes from. What would the majority of US Consumers do when faced with this situation? You got it, buy the cheaper product. Remember, these are the people shopping at Wally World where price is way more important than quality and that equals a lot of people in the US. I believe that the large majority of consumers will base their buying decisions this way. So it will be no significant help to the US Beef industry and just make a paperwork nightmare for us.

Let's go beyond on the example I gave you. Let's place our selves in a higher end grocery store, in this area that would be an Albertsons. They usually have higher quality produce, meat and seafood. So, with COOL in effect you go up to the dispaly of chicken looking to buy a chicken with the government approved, Product of the US on it. You look around and can not find a single label proclaiming this. Why is this? That's simple, the COOL law we are talking about exempts chickens in the US. So all the people out there claiming cool will make our food supply safer, how does this do that when the largest source of protein in Americans diet is exempt from the law? Can anyone please answer this? I know that not much chicken is imported but why are we exempting the really big agri-business product, chickens? So beef and pork producers are going to have a burdensome paperwork requirements because of COOL yet chickens are exempt. Hell, it looks to me like the chicken industry did this to us to drive the cost of their main competitors products up and make chicken price seem relatively cheap to the average consumer. How's that for a conspiracy theory?

Let me ask you another question. What percentage of meat consumed in the US is bought over the meat counter? I don't have the time nor energy to find this out but I guarantee you it is less than 50%. The large majority of meat consumed in the US is in the food service industry. Fast food, restaurant, cafeterias and so on. Is this meat required to be labeled for COOL? NO!!! So they can use any meat they want and have no COOL requirements at all. Again I ask you people, how does this make our meat supply safer? It doesn't.

Everybody here knows my problem with NAIS. They tell us NAIS will stop a disease. I've made my sticking point on this all along, an ear tag never stopped a disease and this is true. The same thing goes here. How does a law that exempts the biggest source of protein in the American's diet and exempts the largest area of consumption of meat in the American diet, make the food supply in the US safer? It doesn't. It just cripples the industries they are requiring to do it. This whole COOL argument is based on making the food supply safer which it doesn't. I will add, just because meat is from the US, doesn't automatically make it safer. It can still get contaminated at the slaughter plant with e-coli or other things so a US label in and of itself does not make the food supply safer. People are operating under a false assumption here.

I will again say at this point, the American consumer has the right to know this information. As long as this information is available at all levels on all products I will remove my reluctance from my support for COOL. This requires a change in the law which I have not heard anything about. All the arguments going on is about the beef industry doing this and how good, or bad it is. I even note that the Government has opened the rule making for COOL up again, comments can be left here (I never could get this site to work with Firefox, only internet explorer). This won't change the law. Only Congress can do that. All we can do is comment on the rule making for the law and maybe the record keeping requirements for it.

When it comes to record keeping for COOL I have a question. Why is it that US producers are going to be burdened with all the paperwork for COOL and imports are not? Since this is the US why not require all meat coming over our borders be permanently marked as foreign and if it doesn't have this mark, assume it is US. No costly paperwork requirements and little to no cost to consumers at the end of the supply line. Instead of there being a 20 cent difference in my example of earlier, there would be at most 1 or 2 cent price difference in the price of the US product and the non US product. Then I can see consumers buying US Beef willingly. The way it is now, it's only going to hurt me and consumers.

I hope I have explained my stance on COOL succinctly. In brief, it will not help the beef industry, will cost the consumer more and will not perform its primary function of making our meat supply safer, but is the right thing to do. How's that for screwed up?

Knowledge is power. Francis Bacon

With all the moisture we have had there are puddles of water all over the place. The cattle sip water out of them but Lucky has a different use for them. They are so nice and cool he can't help himself. Taken 6/10/2007.

UNITED STATES CATTLEMEN'S ASSOCIATION
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For More Information: Abra Belke, (202) 725-4600
Email Contact: abra@bigskystrategies.com

Food Safety Events Escalate Need for Mandatory COOL

San Lucas , Calif. (May 14, 2007) ~ The melamine contamination scandal that began last March in pet food has expanded in recent weeks to include feed given to hogs, chickens, and farm-raised fish. The revelation that a tainted product can move so quickly through the supply chain and contaminate product bound for American dinner tables is troubling to consumers and producers alike.

The United States Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) is asking the federal government to implement mandatory country of origin labeling (M-COOL) at the soonest possible date in order to maintain consumer confidence.

“It is imperative that U.S. consumers know where their food comes from,” says Region X Director and COOL Committee Chairperson Danni Beer. “USCA implores the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to implement M-COOL for beef and fresh fruits and vegetables as soon as possible. The American public deserves the ability to make informed choices about the products they consume, beginning with the food we feed to our families.”

Mandatory country of origin labeling was passed as part of the 2002 Farm Bill, but the USDA has until September 30, 2008, to implement the rule. However, implementation of M-COOL is not the only barrier to providing consumers with accurate and complete food labeling information.

In 2003, the GAO reported that the Tariff Act still requires that imported items be marked with their country of origin through to the ultimate purchaser,who generally would be the consumer. However, there is debate on which agency actually has authority to enforce the Tariff Act. USDA contends that the Federal Meat Inspection Act provides that imported meat products, once they have undergone safety-related inspection activities, and are “deemed and treated as domestic.”

These two Acts overlap each other with two different enforcement agencies, resulting in confusion. USCA believes this confusion was alleviated by country of origin labeling provisions in the 2002 Farm Bill and that USDA has the responsibility to work with other agencies and write a Final Rule for labeling meat products that is definitive, efficient, and economical. Lack of clarity on this issue is providing a loophole for processors and importers and prevents consumers from knowing where a product came from.

“The United States has a number of firewalls in place that make food products - particularly beef, born, raised, and processed domestically - the healthiest, most wholesome food in the world,” says COOL Committee member and Region V Director Chuck Kiker. “These firewalls are accomplished through government funded agencies, but the only way for taxpayers and producers to take full advantage of the services they pay for is to label food products with their origin. Differentiation of U.S. product is particularly important when the conditions and rules by which we produce food in the U.S. have been instrumental in building our reputation worldwide as producing high quality beef. American, as well as international, consumers must have the ability to choose to purchase food that has been produced through systems they are familiar with and have great confidence in.”

Currently, the only information available to the purchaser is a USDA mark of inspection and the USDA grade stamp. These labels have no value when determining a product’s country of origin because imported beef and cattle are eligible for these recognizable stamps.

"USCA strongly urges the USDA and Congress to implement accurate and transparent food labeling. We hope that, in the future, mandatory country of origin labeling will allow U.S. consumers the right to make more informed decisions about the food they buy,” said Beer.

Established in March 2007, USCA is committed to assembling a team to concentrate efforts in Washington D.C. to enhance and expand the cattle industry's voice on Capitol Hill. For membership forms and other information visit www.uscattlemen.org .

More and more organizations are jumping on the mandatory COOL bandwagon. People need to pay attention though, Congress wants to mate COOL and NAIS which is not what producers want. Yes, I said producers. If the consumers were informed what these measures would cost them when they buy beef, they would not want them. I see a train wreck coming if COOL is implemented on a hurry up basis by not considering the costs involved with doing this. Hopefully USCA will watch out for this coupling of COOL and NAIS. It will be a killer if they don't.

Truth cannot be defined or tested by agreement with 'the world'; for not only do truths differ for different worlds but the nature of agreement between a world apart from it is notoriously nebulous. Nelson Goodman

A tenth case of BSE in Canada has been reported. Why is this of such interest to me? It has ignited the debate on COOL and expanding imports of Canadian cattle into the US.

U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, introduced legislation today that would prevent the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, from expanding imports of Canadian cattle until the agency implements a system that allows consumers to see in which country their meat was produced.

National Farmers Union President Tom Buis called the latest case of BSE "very troubling."

"It becomes even more disturbing when you consider that USDA has proposed to re-open the Canadian border and allow live cattle imports born after March 1, 1999 and beef of any age into the United States," said Buis. "The Canadian border should remain closed until mandatory COOL is implemented and Canada can demonstrate that its problem is under control."

Speaking for the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, R-CALF USA, CEO Bill Bullard agrees.

From his office in Billings, Montana, Bullard said, "The U.S. Department of Agriculture has failed its responsibility to adequately protect the U.S. cattle herd, the U.S. beef supply, U.S. export markets and U.S. consumers from Canada�s widespread problem with bovine spongiform encephalopathy."

"Despite a very limited amount of testing, six cases of BSE have been confirmed in Canadian cattle born after Canada implemented its feed ban in 1997 � despite USDA�s unsupported insistence that the Canadian feed ban has been effective in preventing the spread of the disease," Bullard said.

"Why is it that U.S. farmers and ranchers have to pay the expense of a lawsuit in order to force USDA to do the job that hard-working taxpayers have already paid the agency to do," asked R-CALF USA Region I Director Margene Eiguren. "There is something wrong with our government when economic trade goals are allowed to continually trump legitimate health and safety concerns."

This is all fine and dandy. I only have one problem with all of this. The powers that be in Washington want to tie COOL and NAIS together to make things extremely difficult for cattle producers. You all know how I feel about NAIS so the thought of resurrecting mandatory NAIS as part of the COOL plan frightens me. This doesn't need to happen but all these people pushing for COOL because of the Canada BSE issue will probable doom us all. Action taken in the heat of the moment usually results in problems down the road and this needs to be considered here. Remember the Patriot Act was a put into effect immediately following 9/11 and now we look back on it as maybe the wrong response to a crisis situation.

If I really thought COOL would help American cattlemen I would probably be more for it but since I don't the issue doesn't really resonate with me. The thing I am afraid of is COOL is going to cost cattle producers a lot of money to implement, and if they tie NAIS with it that will be the case, which will then be a net money loser for me. Hysteria will drive us over this cliff before people can think. Just watch it happen folks. The cliff is right ahead, can we avoid it?

History is a vast early warning system. Norman Cousins

Can you guess who is running scared from COOL? The big Meat packers, NCBA, good guess but wrong.

And industry officials say they're ready to put up a fight.

Wow, they are really going to fight this. Who is this industry that is so opposed to this? Canada's cattle and hog industries, that's who.

What, they aren't proud of their product? Don't want to see product of Canada on beef or pork sold in the US? These aren't the reason's for their opposition. Here's the reason.

we also stand to be injured greatly because we don't have normalized access to key markets in Asia at this time.

We now see the problem. With all the BSE problems they have had the Asian markets don't want their beef so to market it they ship the live critter to the US, have it slaughtered and then ship it to the Asian markets. Pretty darn sneaky but we knew that was going on all along. So do the Asian markets, they just turn a blind eye to it, that way they can tell their people they are protecting them from BSE from Canada while maintaining good relations with North America. Win/win all the way around for Canada and the Asian markets. Somewhere in here American cattle producers seem to lose out but the US government doesn't care about that.

One thing I have to agree with is this article is the very last sentence.

"These U.S. outlets do not view this program as a demand-enhancing tool, but rather one that will increase cost," Haney said. "This means that the cost will eventually be transferred back down to U.S. cattle producers."

All I see is how COOL will cost me money in the long run. I don't think the majority of consumers in the US care about where there beef comes from. It's a commodity item that they will pay the cheapest price for. Also consumers don't buy a lot of beef at the store counters anymore. It's all sold in the restaurants and food service industry and people don't care where their beef comes from when they are in a restaurant. Taste and especially price are all they care about. I know there will be people that disagree with these statements out there but I said the majority of people want these things, not the discerning people like those that read this blog that want good tasting beef. To them it would matter, but not to most.

The extra cost I am worried about? The ridiculous requirements the USDA has dreamed up to hamper the implementation of COOL. If I remember right one of them is all US beef has to traced and tracked and all foreign beef is free to move through the system with out being kept track of. That's ridiculous but will cost me money. Why they can't just track all foreign beef and any that makes it to the package is then labeled that way, otherwise it's American. That makes much more sense but the USDA wants COL to fail and they set up the rules so it would. Hopefully Congress looks into this and fixes it.

He who thinks and thinks for himself, will always have a claim to thanks; it is no matter whether it be right or wrong, so as it be explicit. If it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn. Jeremy Bentham

R-Calf has a press release out that gives seven easy steps to implement COOL.

USDA can immediately implement COOL for beef by:

*Allowing packers to indicate beef has come from imported animals without having to specify each further production step that may have occurred in the United States.;
*Allowing packers to label blended products with a list of the countries of origin that may be contained in the product, rather than a definitive list of each country;
*Allowing retailers to rely on pre-labeled products for origin claims;
*Allowing meat packers to rely on country markings that already are applied to cattle imports in order to determine origin;
*Eliminating unnecessary and duplicative record-keeping requirements regarding chain of custody and separate tracking during the production process to allow packers and retailers to rely on documents they already keep in the ordinary course of business;
*Reducing the record retention requirement from two years to one year; and
*Specifying that producers and retailers do not need to demand affidavits or third party verification audits of suppliers in order to adequately substantiate origin claims.

Now these things make sense. Some of the requirements the Government dreamed up for COOL were really stupid and I feel designed to make COOL fail. These recommendations by R-Calf kill most of the problems the USDA dreamed up for COOL and Congress needs to implement them. This would really save the program and reduce the expense of the program to a manageable level. I heartily support them.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think COOL will be a major factor in the beef markets in the long run since beef is a commodity item, but it is the right thing to do. Almost everything else gets to bo labeled as to where it comes from, why isn't beef allowed this luxury?

The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting. John Cleese

Rehberg, Baucus work on labeling

Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., said he is introducing legislation to speed up implementation of country-of-origin labeling of meat, while Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said he expects to be named chairman of the Senate subcommittee with jurisdiction over the issue.

Rehberg's legislation would move the deadline for implementation of mandatory country-of-origin labeling, or COOL, from Sept. 30, 2008, to Sept. 30, 2007.

"Special interest groups have been blocking COOL for too long," Rehberg said in a statement. "Montana consumers deserve the right to know where their meat products are coming from and we need to let them know this as soon as possible."

Maybe we will see COOL finally. Will COOL help the US beef industry? No, it will only increase the cost to consumers which will decrease demand, simple law of supply & demand, but it's the right thing to do.

I note now that Burns is gone, good riddance, that Rehberg seems to be stepping up in the leadership of Montana Republicans and taking charge. As always, times are interesting.

Only Americans can hurt America. Dwight D. Eisenhower

Canada cows complicate US, Seoul beef trade: source

South Korea has told the Bush administration it will not resume beef trade until U.S. slaughterhouses segregate Canadian beef products, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

South Korea closed its borders to U.S. beef in December 2003 after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was reported. The United States has since brought into effect a number of food preparation safeguards but South Korean government officials are concerned about the effects of mingling U.S. and Canadian beef.

Canada, which confirmed its sixth home-grown case of mad cow disease on Tuesday, ships cattle and beef from animals under 30 months old into the United States. It has seen twice as many cases of mad cow as the United States, which has a much larger herd.

"The Korean audit team found problems in U.S. slaughter procedures, such as the (lack of) segregation of Canadian beef," the source said. "Seoul is discussing and waiting for the U.S. to take measures on that issue. Any time the issue is solved (it will) start importing U.S. beef."

So, another Canadian cow with BSE stops American producers from gaining another export market. This just shows why we should have COOL here in the US. If the cattle were required to be segregated by country at the packing plant for COOL, South Korea's requirement would be met. But the USDA and the meat packers don't want COOL so we are stuck with the situation as is.

The export market for American beef to South Korea held up by Canadian cattle. I didn't realize the USDA's mission was to protect Canadian Cattlemen.

When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself. Isaac Bashevis Singer