Info on Certification and Labeling for Ag. Producers

Received an interesting question regarding geographical certification today and so I thought I'd pass on some resources. In 2005 the Western Extension Marketing Committee produced a small book on the subject that many will find useful. You can download a free copy in pdf format from: http://cals.arizona.edu/arec/wemc/certification.html. Geographical certification comes up when Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) is discussed.

The 2002 Farm Bill included a provision mandating that retailers provide country-of-origin information (in the form of a label or placard) at the point of purchase for specific fresh food items. Whole muscle and ground cuts of beef, pork, and lamb; seafood; peanuts; and fruits and vegetables sold through retailers were all included in the mandatory COOL provision.

The 2002 COOL Act was scheduled to become mandatory in September of 2004. However, due to industry concerns about a mandatory COOL program, in January 2004, legislation was signed postponing implementation of a mandatory COOL program for all food products except wild and farm-raised fish and shellfish. There continues to be a debate regarding whether or not a mandatory COOL should be implemented.

A discussion of several of the issues surrounding the COOL debate can be found in the fourth quarter 2004 issue of Choices Magazine (online at http://www.choicesmagazine.org/2004-4/index.htm).

It finally became a mandatory measure and was implemented March 16, 2009, by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service. In the case of imported products, the food label indicates where it started, was grown/raised and processed. For example, a meat label for pork might read, “From hogs born in Canada, raised and slaughtered in the United States.”

The law establishes four general meat product categories: (1) Product of the United States in which the animal was born, raised and slaughtered in the United States; (2) Multiple countries of origin. The animal was born and/or raised in another country and then slaughtered in the United States; (3) Animals imported for immediate slaughter; and (4) Imported finished products to be sold at retail. These products are labeled as products of the given originating country.

There are exemptions to the rule. Food operations such as restaurants, cafeterias, food stands, butcher shops and fish markets do not have to label their foods. Grocery stores that sell less than $230,000 a year also do not need to provide this labeling. To read more about COOL go to: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/cool.

So there is geographical labeling from a country standpoint but not a "local" as the interesting question was posed. Given that the wine industry seeks out and receives appellation labels, it might be worth pursuing their path with regard to geographical labeling or certification of meat products.