Animal traceability meeting set for Pasco; Mexico drops anti-dumping duties on U.S. beef
Washington Ag Today August 12, 2010 The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will be holding three additional public meetings on the animal disease traceability framework approach and one of those will be in Washington state. That framework would require states and tribal nations to establish the ability to trace back to their state of origin, animals moving interstate. APHIS has scheduled a meeting for August 24th in Pasco at the Red Lion Hotel from eight a.m. to 4 p.m. with registration beginning an hour prior to the meeting. ? Mexico dropped its anti-dumping duties on U.S. beef effective yesterday. The duties have been in place for the last ten years. National Cattlemen’s Beef Association economist Gregg Doud says the duties kept many exporters locked out of the top export market for the U.S. Doud: “This is a deal that our government said, they crunched the numbers. USTR said it has cost anywhere from 100-million to 500-million a year for the past ten years, this thing that was imposed by some of us in our very own industry.” By our very own industry Doud is referring to an anti-dumping case brought by R-CALF against Mexican and Canadian feeder cattle more than a decade ago. Doud: “NCBA told them not to because they would lose, Mexico would retaliate and win and when they did we would get hit with anti-dumping duties. They didn‘t listen. That is what happened and ten years later we finally, finally got out from under all this.” I’m Bob Hoff on Northwest Aginfo Net. ?
