The reason for the repeal of COOL was that our northern and southern neighbors complained that the labeling was hurting their exports of beef and pork to the US. Not so much at the consumer level but at the packing houses. The large packers didn't want to buy foreign livestock because they didn't want the cost and burden of separating the Canadian animals from domestic animals. So the Canadians and Mexicans were not making as much money selling livestock into US markets.
This past Wednesday, Congress voted to repeal the Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) requirement for imported meat. This was used to identify where the animals were born, raised, and slaughtered. The meat from those animals was then labeled with the country of origin label.
The reason for the repeal of COOL was that our northern and southern neighbors complained that the labeling was hurting their exports of beef and pork to the US. Not so much at the consumer level but at the packing houses. The large packers didn't want to buy foreign livestock because they didn't want the cost and burden of separating the Canadian animals from domestic animals. So the Canadians and Mexicans were not making as much money selling livestock into US markets.
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It was a frigid morning, and the sun had not yet poked over the ridge. The girls, about half of our twenty-four ewe herd, stood staring at me waiting for me to fill their bunk with feed. They were eager to get started this morning. Maybe the cold air had made them hungry or maybe they were finally getting use to the routine of milking, either way they were ready for the milk to flow.
This has been a familiar scene around the world for multiple millennia. The dairy farmer, the herder, the milch maid whatever the name given there has been a person tending to cattle, sheep, or goats for milk. Our farm at one point was a dairy. And we have toyed with the idea of going back to keeping some dairy animals on the farm for milk production. This year we gave a short go at it with our sheep just to get a feel for the routine and how it might fit with what we already do. But an article I read this week may push us to really consider becoming a raw milk dairy. The article told about two bioengineers that are planning to start production next year on milk that was made without cows. They call it Muufri (pronounced Moo Free). That's not a typo, cow free milk. Are GMO's headed for the trash heap of history? We can only hope. My optimism is growing that it will. There has been a growing trend in farmers moving away from GMO products. A lot of the drive has been due to cost. Roundup, the chemical used to kill everything in a field except the GMO plants planted there, is as one farmer described it, "as cheap as water." But the seed is another story. It is highly expensive. The farmer I quoted quit raising GMO corn for his 500 head dairy for two reasons - cost and it didn't work as promised.
GMO's not delivering as the companies promised is nothing new. There have been problems with crop failures and low yields for a long time. Now companies that produce GMO's have this to deal with. The top three yielding corn crops in the USA were from hybrid corn varieties. One of these farmers, from right here in Virginia, set a world yield record ( http://bit.ly/1cQpLvi ). We can only hope that this will be one more nail in the coffin for GMO's. |
AuthorI'm a thirty something who is married with kids that gets to farm somewhere in between. Categories
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