Save Our Swine
CALL TO ACTION: Preserve the Flexibility in Final Rule on COOL.
USDA recently issued its Final Rule on Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL). The Final Rule, although flawed, is a major improvement over the Interim Rule (released in August 2008) for U.S. hog farmers and importers who source Canadian weanlings and feeder pigs. The Final Rule permits use of the label “Product of the United States and Canada” when pork products are derived from both U.S.-origin hogs and Canadian hogs raised in the U.S., so long as the animals are commingled in a single production day. This will provide processors/packers the flexibility to continue sourcing Canadian hogs raised in the U.S. Unfortunately, this aspect of the Final Rule is now under attack.
New USDA Secretary Vilsack (former Governor of Iowa) is evaluating whether the Final Rule should be reopened for review. Staunch pro-COOL advocates are urging him to do so, and trying to eliminate the labeling flexibility so important to hog farmers who source Canadian pigs. If they are successful, processors/packers have said that the burden of segregating inventories will lead them to cease sourcing hogs born in Canada, and purchase only U.S.-origin hogs, with devastating consequences for farmers like you.
- Enter your zip code in the form to the right. Click Submit. This will locate your Member of Congress, U.S. Senators, and USDA offices.
- Enter your personal information.
- Personalize the message text on the right with your own words, if you wish, and click the button to send your message. Click here to view key talking points.
KEY POINTS FOR YOUR MESSAGE
(Please personalize these points to fit your individual situation):
DO NOTHING! Leave the Final Rule as it currently stands. Follow House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson's advice that reopening the Final Rule "would be like opening a can of worms." This is sage advice from the chief Congressional architect of COOL, who understands that the Final Rule reflects a compromise that was achieved with great difficulty over a six-year period.
Reopening the rule would cause such uncertainty in the market and make it impossible to plan. This alone could devastate my farm.
As Secretary Vilsack stated, it is important that COOL "provides clear and consistent guidance to affected industries." Reopening COOL yet again so soon (after the issuance first of the Interim Rule and then the Final Rule) will undermine that goal and create enormous uncertainty in the market.
Changing the Final Rule on COOL will not protect American interests, but only hurt American farmers like me. It would be a fatal blow in this very difficult economy.
We rely on Canadian weanlings and feeder pigs because there is an insufficient supply of feeder pigs in the United States. Loss of Canadian supply would have a very negative impact on our operation and workers and may jeopardize our farms, adding more unemployment in our already distressed communities.
Most of the value of the hogs we raise is added in the United States. Canadian feeder pigs are imported at very low weights and then transformed by American grain and American workers into market hogs before they are sold.
ACT NOW: Contact your Member of Congress, U.S. Senators, Secretary Vilsack and local USDA offices and let them know how important the Final Rule is to your operation.