Current Cattle Market Daily Headlines for Thursday, May 21, 2020

Mackenzie Johnston

6 years ago

NCBA supports a voluntary labeling program

A major push for MCOOL to be reinstated has resurfaced over the past couple months, but NCBA’s Ceo, Colin Woodall, says the labeling will do more harm than good.
Woodall stated that the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled against MCOOL back in 2015 and there is no mandatory program that will satisfy them. If a mandatory Country of Origin Labeling program were put in place, the U.S. would automatically be dealt $1 billion in retaliatory tariffs by Canada and Mexico.
NCBA does support a voluntary labeling program. “We believe the best way to do this is to focus all labeling programs on the USDA system that is currently in place,” said Woodall.
A petition was recently launched by R-Calf USA and it’s rancher members urging President Trump and Congress to reinstate MCOOL for beef, pork, and dairy products. This petition has gained over 250,000 signatures.
Senator Jon Tester of Montana and Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota introduced a resolution last week requiring the U.S. Trade Representatives to enter into trade negotiations needed to implement country-of-origin labeling for beef.

According to Christine McCracken, RaboResearch senior animal protein analyst, pork processors have the labor to harvest, but they don’t have the people to harvest and debone and trim and work the Cryovac and get everything in a box and out to the retailer in the form they want.
McCracken says slaughter levels are beginning to normalize, however, the pork industry is still facing about 2 million hogs backed up at the producer level. The pork industry has also started to see some liquidation.
Through all of this, the pork industry will likely see an increase in efficiency by taking out the least productive animals and farms with ongoing disease issues.
Pork processing has been running about 75% of daily capacity.