In today’s Beef Buzz, senior farm and ranch broadcaster Ron Hays continues his conversation with Kent Bacus of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s Washington, D.C. office about the latest beef import announcements, food safety concerns, and the Product of USA label. Parts one and two can be found here.
Food Safety Remains a Concern
Bacus discussed President Donald Trump’s plan to temporarily increase the U.S. import quota for lean beef trimmings by 300,000 metric tons. The additional volume will be made available in three 100,000-metric-ton tranches: one during September, a second during October, and a third beginning October 31 and running through November.
Bacus says the United States has established food safety and animal health standards that consumers have come to trust. “We have the highest food safety and animal health standards in the world, bar none, hands down.”
He says the concern is not necessarily the volume of beef coming into the country, but whether the products from other countries are being adequately verified. “The concern is that if there is a problem that comes from these countries, and since we don’t have current accurate data to prove that what they are sending here is up to our standards, that could potentially jeopardize the reputation that we have built for beef.”
Bacus says consumers generally won’t distinguish between beef based on where it originated. “American consumers, they’re not going to look, ‘Oh, is this an Argentina product? Is this a Brazil product?’ Because a lot of times it’s not going to carry that label at a grocery store. It’s not going to carry that label at a restaurant. But what they are going to see is it’s beef.”
He says maintaining consumer confidence in the overall beef product is ultimately the larger concern. “If people don’t have faith in the product itself, they’re not going to buy it. And that’s the bigger concern here.”
Bacus says NCBA is not questioning the role of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, but wants additional verification of foreign suppliers. “I have all faith in FSIS. I have all faith in USDA to be able to go and enforce these things. All we’re asking is that we have new audits and that we go and we inspect these guys and make sure that anything they’re telling us is actually backed up.”
Bacus Questions Product of USA Changes
Hays also asks Bacus about the administration’s continued support for Product of USA labeling, particularly following President Trump’s directive to USDA and the USTR to review MCOOL to see if it can be reinstated.
Bacus says he questions the logic of changing the approach after the industry and government invested heavily in the existing Product of USA program. “That’s probably the most interesting thing of all because of the success of the Product of USA label and the rollout of that, and the fact that you know the U.S. government’s invested 100 million dollars in this promotional thing just to go and undercut it by saying that that doesn’t go far enough, I fail to see the logic in any of that.”
Bacus says the existing Product of USA label already addressed concerns over imported beef carrying U.S.-style labeling. “We know that this Product of USA label, it closed the loophole on imported beef being able to carry those ‘Made in the USA’ product or labels, so this really seems redundant.”
Rather than focusing heavily on labeling changes, Bacus says the cattle industry has other policy issues that deserve attention. “Let’s go after ESA reform. Let’s go after and continue to roll back, you know, some of the other regulatory burdens that are out there.”
He says those issues could have a more direct impact on cattle producers. “How we label this stuff, and really how the government tries to undercut itself on labeling programs, just seems to be- It just seems to be misguided. There’s much bigger pressures that are out there. Let’s focus on those and deliver real wins for cattle producers.”
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR above for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
