By David Heiller
If you are like me, the issue of ìcountry of origin labelingî on meat products is not a big deal. It doesnít enter my mind when I buy a pound of hamburger where it came from.

But I was glad to hear from two local beef farmers last week about COOL, which is a cool acronym for country of origin labeling.

Vern Fruechte of Caledonia and Jeff Gerard of Spring Grove visited with me for about 30 minutes on February 18 to give me some facts on COOL. Jeff also submitted a letter to the editor, which is on this page.

I donít usually write columns on things that are expressed quite well in letters to the editor. But I found myself agreeing with Fruechte and Gerard.

For one thing, they were disappointed with U.S. Senator Norm Colemanís comments in an interview in The Argus the previous week. I had asked Coleman about COOL, and his comments were tinged with caution. He had a ìyeah-butî answer. He cited the potential high cost of doing it, and said it could drive some producers out of business.

Fruechte said the technical aspect of implementing COOL would not be that hard to do. He showed me a USDA pamphlet called Premises Identification, which is the first step in implementing a national animal identification system. Itís a response to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, allowing sick animals to be traced to the source of infection. Once premises identification is in place, each animal on a farm will be identified by an ear tag, and the country of origin would be easy to identify, Fruechte feels.

As for the cost, which Coleman said could cost $5 per animal, that is actually a relatively small amount, Gerard said. Beef prices can vary $2 per hundred per day. So a 1,300 pound cow can fluctuate in value by $26 daily. ìSo whatís five bucks?î Gerard asked.

COOL is a marketing tool, Gerard said. He gave Coleman credit for identifying is as such. The idea is that people will want to buy meat from the U.S. and not other countries. Maybe they will do it out of a sense of loyalty, or maybe, as Fruechte said several times, theyíll do it because American beef is superior in quality. People would be willing to pay more for that higher quality, Fruechte believes. A 1,300 pound steer in the U.S. is ready in 13 months, he said. ìRag-tagî Mexican cows may be twice that age, Fruechte said.

So why doesnít this very logical idea get implemented? Gerard said the forces of big business are at work. In a nutshell, it will cut into the profits of packers and feedlots. Meat packers are blending beef now, mixing U.S. meat with cheaper imports, and not passing that savings on to the consumer. They are making more money that way. Packing plants and feedlots are also jointly owned, and packers use contracting strategies to have a captive supply of beef. Itís much easier for them to control prices that way. Small farmers like Fruechte and Gerard are at their mercy, in a sense. That fact, ironically, could drive them out of business more quickly than the cost of origin labeling that Coleman is so worried about.

Gerard would even like to see a ban on packing plants owning feedlots. I wonder how the senator feels about that?

When you throw the big business angle into this argument, you can see why politicians like Sen. Coleman are doing the Yeah-But Shuffle. There is no doubt a tremendous amount of lobbying ñ and money ñ involved. Letís see, who will I listen to, Tyson/IBP, the largest meat packer in the United States, and one that has 40 percent of the market share, or Vern Fruechte of Caledonia?

Just four companies ñ Tyson/IBP, Cargill/Excel, Swift/ConAgra, and Farmland National Beef ñ control roughly 80 percent of the meat packing market. Thatís a lot of power.

All right, Iím cynical. But itís a good issue to be aware of, and it wouldnít hurt for all of us to get more involved. ìItís a very small percentage of people who get involved,î Gerard said.

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