COOL deadline creating havoc for cattlemen

Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) is set to take effect September 30 in all meat products governed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including beef, pork, veal and lamb.

The idea is to create traceability for all meat, so that if BSE, E.-Coli or some other disease is found in a particular shipment to a foreign country, it can be traced back to its source. In concept, this sound like a great idea, that will eliminate disease once and for all.

In practice, the burden of record keeping is very onerous and costly for the producer, who must bear it alone. Once again, the federal government laid out stout mandates, but no technical help or money to implement it. It might well put small producers out of business, and later be found to contain widespread fraud and a paper trail that leads to nowhere.

Producers unintentionally brought this on themselves. Long before BSE and boycotts of U.S. beef, a group of well-meaning cattlemen thought it would create a marketing coup for U.S. beef to be labeled as such. They finally got Congress to pass such a law many years ago, which has been postponed and stalled ever since.

Voila! BSE came on the scene, and federal regulators saw this law already on the books, which could be manipulated to create traceability for meat products, without having to get Congress to pass new legislation. The original intent of the proponents of the law was subverted and changed--bringing the steel trap of government regulation to the ranch gate.

Producers across the country rue the day they supported the original law, but the genie is out of the bottle, and they must comply. Interesting days are ahead.