|
The House Appropriations Committee has passed a provision to delay implementation of mandatory Country-of -Origin
Labeling until September 2007. This is just one more attempt to kill the consumers’ right to
know where their food originates.
The House of Representatives will vote on
this bill, Wednesday, June 8.
Rep. Rehberg (R-MT) will offer an amendment to strike the language
that delays mandatory labeling from the appropriations bill.
Your calls are needed today and early tomorrow to save mandatory food labeling!
Preserve the consumers’ right to know the country of origin of the meats they buy and the
producers’ ability to differentiate their product from foreign foods.
What You Can Do:
To SAVE mandatory COOL, producers must contact their Representatives right away.
Urge these Representatives to support the Rehberg amendment.
Please take a few minutes to do two things:
1) Call your Representative and tell him or her that you
support the Rehberg amendment, which would restore the implementation of
mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling back to September 2006. If your
representative has supported mandatory labeling in the past, thank them
for their support. You can leave a message for any Representative through
the Capitol Switchboard at 202/224-3121.
2) Pass this alert on to family or friends in other
states and urge them to contact their Representative in support of
the Rehberg Amendment to the House Appropriations bill!
Background:
The 2002 Farm Bill requires mandatory Country-of-Origin
Labeling of beef, lamb, pork, fish, fresh and frozen fruits and
vegetables, and peanuts. The label would be found on foods sold
in grocery stores and would state the food’s country of
origin. The Farm Bill called for the rules to go into effect
in September 2004..
The rules have gone into effect for fish, fruits
and vegetables and peanuts. However, ranchers and consumers still
await implementation of the labeling for meats. Mandatory Country-of-Origin
Labeling would benefit both consumers, who will be able to make
an informed choice and buy food produced closer to home, and
producers, who need a way to identify their crops and livestock
as products of the United States.
Since passage of the 2002 Farm Bill, Country-of-Origin
Labeling for meat has been under attack. The National Cattlemen’s
Beef Association and corporate agribusiness have been trying to delay
and kill mandatory labeling. The implementation date was delayed once
through the appropriations process in 2004; now opponents are trying to
use the same back door approach to delay mandatory labeling of meat again.
For more information on mandatory labeling contact WORC at 701/376-7077
or 406/252-9672.
|
