P.O. Box 6486

Lincoln, NE 68506

www.competitivemarkets.com

Date: January 6, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Steve Cady, 402-792-0041

OCM: COOL Must be Part of the BSE Safety Solution

Lincoln, NE ~ The Organization for Competitive Markets said that country of origin labeling (COOL) is a food safety issue that has to be a part of the solution in the wake of the finding of a BSE-infected Canadian cow in Washington State. A spokesman for OCM said that consumers understand the importance of making food safety decision based upon a product’s country of origin, whether it be Mexican green tomatoes or Canadian beef.

"Implementation of COOL prior to recent events would have provided consumers with confidence in the safety of domestically raised and labeled beef," noted Fred Stokes, OCM president. "As a result, ‘U.S. born, raised and processed’ boxed beef would be worth a premium in today’s market. In addition, our Pacific Rim trading partners would have been assured that their imported product was solely produced in the U.S., alleviating the market panic and international bans of U.S. beef that have occurred.”

“The current throw-it-all-in-one-batch approach is outdated and dangerous for our markets because contamination imported from anywhere goes into the batch,” continued Stokes. “We’re playing a game of Russian Roulette with this nation’s economic core by not segregating U.S. beef from foreign imports of beef. With every box of imported beef that comes across our borders and is thrown together with U.S. beef we expose our entire industry to devastating risk."

On December 26, OCM released a statement encouraging USDA to come forth immediately with information regarding the Washington State dairy cow’s country of origin saying the Terrestrial Animal Health Code would allow the U.S. to retain its provisionally BSE-free status because the cow was a product of Canada and not native to the U.S. "USDA should be pursuing this route relentlessly to restore international trade immediately. However, our trading partners aren’t going to purchase U.S. beef if we’re importing it from elsewhere – particularly from a known BSE-infected country – and putting the U.S. imprimatur on the meat," said Michael Stumo, OCM’s legal counsel. "Borders are the primary physical control point. To pretend they don’t exist is economic ruination in service of blind ideology."

"There’s little doubt that a nationwide mandatory animal identification program to facilitate trace back in the event of a food safety or animal health crisis is needed and will go a long way towards growing consumer confidence, particularly if it’s harnessed to country of origin labeling," commented Stokes. "Individual animal identification is an enormous undertaking and will take considerable time to implement. Time is not on our side. When the national identification program is implemented it will certainly be an asset to COOL and vice versa, but the two are very separate issues. The first step is to implement COOL immediately, restore the confidence of our trading partners, and give domestic consumers what they’ve asked for which is the ability to choose the safest meat in the world to feed their families."

The Organization for Competitive Markets is a nonprofit organization working for fair, open and competitive markets for farmers, ranchers and rural communities. OCM helps lead the Cattlemen’s Competitive Market Project which is a voluntary contribution program focusing on competition in the cattle markets.