The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations are working to help improve the food safety system in Belarus.
Governmental representatives met for five days of talks in Minsk earlier this month to conclude a previous project and set priorities for future work. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is attempting to understand the…
Country of origin labeling for meat once involved lofty policy debates in Congress and international bodies like the World Trade Organization.
Now two influential groups have decided it would help domestic producers and consumers alike if USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) would change its policies. The Lincoln, NE-based Organization for Competitive Markets and…
In public policy, as in life, learning from past mistakes is a cardinal rule for success. That is why it was disappointing to see Thomas Gremillion from the Consumer Federation of America advocate for the reinstatement of mandatory country-of-origin labelling (MCOOL) for beef and pork in a recent guest opinion column on the Food Safety …
This week marks the beginning of formal talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, an agreement President Donald Trump has called the “worst deal in history.” To make it a better deal, his Administration released a set of negotiating objectives last month, but they ignored the most outrageous example of how American consumers…
A two-year trial period for mandatory country-of-origin labeling is getting underway in France, but it’s not as likely to conflict with international trade rules as the U.S. COOL program did in recent years because it’s tied to the European Commission’s work on the issue.
Country-of-origin labeling (COOL) efforts in France will focus on 100 percent…
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has authorized Canada and Mexico to charge the U.S. $1 billion in retaliatory tariffs for country-of-origin labeling (COOL) on meat. Last spring, WTO rejected a U.S. appeal of its decision that COOL unfairly discriminates against meat imports and gives the advantage to domestic meat products. COOL, which went into effect…
Five U.S. senators from three states, all Democrats, have let the leadership know that county-of-origin (COOL) meat labeling is not worth a trade war with Canada and Mexico. Led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the five sent a letter dated Tuesday, Dec. 1, to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Minority Leader Harry…
Last week, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) filed a legal brief in the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute over mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL), arguing that the $3 billion sought by Canada and Mexico in retaliatory tariffs are a dramatic overestimation of damages. The U.S. requested that the WTO Arbitrator reject the amounts requested by…
Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and John Hoeven (R-ND) introduced a bill Thursday that would remove certain meats from the mandatory country-of-origin (COOL) labeling program and institute a voluntary label instead. In May, the World Trade Organization rejected a U.S. appeal of its decision that COOL on meat unfairly discriminates against meat imports and give the…
China, Costa Rica, and the European Union earlier this month put new food safety-related issues on the agenda at the World Trade Organization’s Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures. China told the SPS Committee that it plans to amend its safety assessment of agricultural genetically modified food and feed, sometimes referred to as…
The Senate Agriculture Committee held a hearing Thursday to discuss country-of-origin labeling (COOL) for meat, which requires that packages sold in the U.S. indicate the country, or countries, where animals were born, raised and slaughtered. “It doesn’t matter if you’re pro-COOL (and many are) or anti-COOL (and many are), you cannot ignore the fact that…
