Farmscape for December 7, 2012

The trade chair with the Canadian Pork Council says there is strong support on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border for repealing U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling.
Mandatory U.S. Country of Origin Labelling requires a range of products, including specific cuts of pork and beef, to be labelled according to their country of origin.
In July the World Trade Organization Appellate Body upheld a November 2011 Dispute Settlement Panel ruling that U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling discriminates against imported livestock and is inconsistent with U.S. trade obligations.
This week a WTO arbitrator decided the United States must  bring its labelling measure into compliance by  May 23, 2013 or face the prospects of retaliatory tariffs.
Canadian Pork Council trade chair Jurgen Preugschas says the sooner the U.S. comes into compliance the better but, failing that, producers will be pushing the federal government to immediate take retaliatory action.

Clip-Jurgen Preugschas-Canadian Pork Council:
We would prefer not to take retaliatory action.
We would like the U.S. to come into compliance.
We want trade to come back into the normal form that it was in our integrated market.
We have many allies in the United States that agree with that as well.
The packing houses, the distributors and many of the associations, pork and beef associations agree that COOL was harmful to both sides of the border and the sooner that we get rid of it the better it is.

Preugschas says this latest ruling sets a hard date by which the Americans must come into compliance with their obligations.
He says, if the U.S. fails to come into compliance, Canadian producers will be pressing the Canadian government to immediately take action by implementing compensatory tariffs.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council