03/05/07 Getting COOL with Labels

Getting Cool with Labels. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Mandatory country-of-origin labeling - or COOL - was passed into law as part of the 2002 Farm Bill. But the implementation of the measure has been pushed back a number of times - with the date of implementation currently set for September of 2008. But legislation has been introduced in the 110th Congress to move that implementation date up to September of this year. The bill has bipartisan support - as well as the support of a coalition of more than 200 organizations from across the country. In fact - those groups - including National Farmers Union - have signed onto a letter urging members of Congress to support COOL. NFU President Tom Buis says implementation has taken long enough already. BIUS: It's probably one of the most common sense provisions ever passed by Congress to really allow our nations farmers to compete with the flood of foreign food that's coming into our country. It's a way for us to market our products, our high quality food that consumers count on and it's a consumers right to know. We're really pleased that we have 213 consumer, religious, farm organizations, seafood, livestock, poultry, labor groups all who say let's move forward. Let's stop the delay, after delay after delay and let's get this thing done. Buis says it gives producers the ability to differentiate their products as Made in the U.S.A. And as Wyoming GOP Senator Craig Thomas - a co-sponsor of the implementation legislation - points out - COOL gives consumers the ability to know where their food comes from - something they have the right to know. THOMAS: I think it's just very reasonable. There's no reason why when the consumer purchases his meat just as you'd purchase a t-shirt - why you have a right to know where it comes from. And as we have more and more foreign trade and there's going to be more foreign trade as time goes on I think it makes it even more important and more of an opportunity for people to choose and so I think most producers are in favor of it, I think most consumers are in favor of it and so we ought to move. According to Chris Waldrop - Director of the Food Policy Institute - millions of Americans stand in support of this program. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.