Monday, October 19, 2009

COOL Chill

The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) is opposing the recent bill adding dairy to Country of Origin Labeling (COOL): http://www.idfa.org/key-issues/details/4407/

Embedded is a link to a Dairy Today editorial quoting "Chris Galen, spokesperson for the National Milk Producers Federation" NMPF:

But dairy industry players are cool to the idea. “Given the ongoing controversy over, and challenge with, implementing country of origin for meat products, and the learning curve involved in that regulation, we believe now is not the time to apply a similar requirement to dairy products,” says Chris Galen, spokesperson for the National Milk Producers Federation. “In particular, Canada’s current dispute of the meat COOL regulation in the World Trade Organization is an indication of the challenges involved in this type of labeling.

“The present dairy COOL proposal would actually apply to a broader range of dairy products than the meat COOL regulation, complicating enforcement and labeling concerns,” he adds. “The extensive U.S. regulatory requirements that already exist, and that are applied to both domestic and imported dairy products, provide significant oversight over imports. From a marketing standpoint, many of the foreign products coming into this country, especially cheeses, are already labeled with their place of origin, and do so willingly.”




I'm going to guess that IDFA and NMPF get more than one seat at the table. "Some are more equal than others."is the famous quote from Orwell's "Animal Farm." In chapter 5 of "Animal Farm" we read, "Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure. On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"

No comments:

Post a Comment