Canadian Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch says Canadian pork producers are increasingly concerned that the U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling law has made it more difficult to move Canadian product into the United States, while American product continues to flow freely into Canada. According to Kynoch, a growing number of Canadian pork producers believe Ottawa needs to impose the same labeling rules on U.S. pork entering Canada as is required for Canadian product entering the U.S.
Kynoch points out they are going through the World Trade Organization to try to resolve the dispute of COOL and the impact that it's had. He says if they were to lose this case and those labeling restrictions stay in place some Canadian producers are starting to push for equivalency in labeling laws coming into Canada. Twenty-five percent of the product that goes across the shelves in Canada comes out of the U.S.
Canadian and U.S. producers have worked together to achieve equivalency on food safety and animal welfare laws but, according to Kynoch, when there are see stricter labeling laws on one side of the border, it disrupts that equivalency. A delegation representing Manitoba Pork Council was in Minneapolis, Minnesota last week and is in Des Moines, Iowa this week for a series of trade advocacy meetings and to discuss issues of common concern with their U.S. counterparts.
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