Where’s the beef from?

VERONA – It’s a popular trend for marketing food products, but country-of-origin labeling has nothing to do with food safety.

According to Julie Lewis, who works in the agriculture marketing service for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the new law is about marketing the origin of products only.

“People don’t understand that it’s not a food safety law,” Lewis said.

Lewis spoke as part of the Virginia Beef Outlook Symposium held Saturday at the Augusta County Government Center. Other presentations included an outlook for the beef cattle industry in 2009, genetic consideration in future profits and legal issues in preserving the family farm.

Mandatory country-of-origin labeling became effective on Sept. 30, meaning meat, fruit, vegetable, nuts and ginseng commodities produced or packaged after that date must have a label — legible and placed in a conspicuous location — indicating what country the product was grown in.

The law does, however, exempt processed food items undergoing some kind of “change of character,” Lewis said.

Lewis said the new labeling requirements would undergo a six-month period of “informed compliance,” with retail reviews not taking place until April 2009.

She told the nearly 30 people in attendance that the Department of Agriculture would continue with educational and outreach programs on the new law, while continuing retail surveillance for fish and shellfish. Country-of-origin labeling has been in place for those two items since 2005.

Barry Bashue, vice president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, told the group’s 2008 convention last week that its Virginia Grown marketing program would remain unaffected by the new law.

Jason Carter, of the Virginia Cooperative Extension, said the labeling effort has been “a long and arduous journey.”

He noted that from a consumer confidence point of view, food is safer, whether it comes from overseas or from the United States, because the USDA is inspecting it.

However, Carter said Canada sees it as a tariff, and already there is a lawsuit pending in U.S. District Court.

Lewis, without commenting on the pending litigation, said the laws were written “in the least burdensome way possible.”

Earlier in the day, Troy Marshall, a contributing editor for Beef Magazine, told those assembled that the beef cattle industry is becoming customer-driven and is going to have to “adapt and innovate in order to survive.”

The industry, while “outnumbered and outgunned” by hardcore environmental groups with more money and clout through alliances with one another, has the advantage of honesty and character, he said. Marshall said the beef cattle industry would have to foster alliances of its own with like-minded groups.

“We have to fight hard for the future of our business,” Marshall said.

He said he was excited by possibilities in China, telling the group they need either to get big or offer something different while making the case that they are the true stewards of the land.

“We have to guard this culture and lifestyle because it’s unique,” Marshall said.