Meat labeling change doesn’t serve American consumers

The label “USDA inspected” does not mean beef is a product of the USA.

I’m proud to be an independent cattle rancher. I and my fellow ranchers across America raise a product we can be proud of. I’m also a consumer — one who appreciates having the option to support domestic producers like me when I’m shopping for food.

Until 2016, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had our backs. It treated independent ranchers fairly by enforcing country-of-origin labeling on beef and pork sold in U.S. stores. That enabled consumers to recognize when they were buying beef from cattle raised in this country and not meat from cattle imported by multinational corporations and merely handled in a processing plant here.

Last year, the USDA began allowing imported meat to be passed off as domestic product, in violation of the Meat Inspection Act. Consumers, 89 percent of whom say they want to know where their meat comes from, are more confused than ever after this change. Independent cattlemen like myself are now worse off because we tend to receive lower prices for our cattle when country-of-origin labeling isn’t in effect.

R-CALF USA, the group of independent cattle ranchers of which I am a member, has taken the USDA to court over this move to make sure the government can’t shirk its responsibilities to American producers and consumers. NAFTA and other trade agreements are currently being renegotiated, which is an opportunity to reinstate common sense country-of-origin labeling.

I hope the members of this community will join me in writing to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and urging this administration to protect American producers and consumers, not just corporations, by bringing back country-of-origin labeling.

USA beef is what should be for dinner. Thank you for supporting American ranchers. BILL YANCEY

Prairie Grove