Apparently there is a strong push going on by big agriculture and trade to get rid of MCOOL (Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling), and very few people seem to be talking about it. What are your opinions? This seems like something Logan would have something to say about.
I think it's ridiculous - like the article stated, we should be giving consumers more information about their what they're buying, not less. In a consumer-based society like ours, dollars are one of the closest things to votes individuals have. If we don't like what a company is doing, it's our right (a zealot might say "duty") to find and support alternative companies and products.
My long-ass farmer's rant/opinion:
But of course the big players in the meat industry are going to say it's ineffective and cumbersome. Firstly, because for the first time in decades, American cattle prices have gone up significantly. My family has been in the small dairy business for generations, and my father who's run our 52 cow dairy since the '70s always tells me that the one thing that never really sees any inflation are milk and beef prices. Until recently. I'm prone to believe him, and this data sheet at least corroborates his story to the '90s.
This isn't good for meat barons like Warren Buffett, especially when they've been moving shop to Brazil. Not only because the ridiculous cut they've been getting as middleman for smaller American beef outfits takes a hit, but because I'm sure many of us DO read the labeling and care where our food is coming from.
And this brings us back to consumers making educated, consumer decisions. Brazil is host to a large portion of one of the ecological noteworthies in the world - the Amazon, which is both an biological hotspot and crucial of CO2-Oxygen exchange. The beef industry in Brazil is a major force behind deforestation, despite what their public-opinion campaigns might perpetuate. Cattle eat. A lot. Big beef operations require land for either grazing or cropping. Intensive cropping is more land efficient, but creates soil erosion, nutrient leeching, and other environmental issues. And grazing doesn't leave land unmarked. And, either way, boosting production in an already unsustainable practice is going to fix things? I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry.
And don't even get me started on the hormones and drugs many larger farming outfits use. Zilmax is renowned for helping cattle put on weight, but the health problems it causes are inhumane and I don't doubt that there are trace effects in meat products. Larger hog outfits have stepped away from Zilmax because of the number of downed animals that it resulted in. And this, coming from me, someone who generally shrugs at PETA and hunts/butchers deer yearly. Finally, our FDA is scuzzy enough, but I trust just about anything that isn't Canada or the EU even less.
Anyway, I know there are some WOT rulings involved, cheap food is nice, science and efficient production are good, and talking about money in an industry as subsidized as American agriculture is a bit messy. And I could go into more detail on those. But God, this feels like a circus.