Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Texas Ranchers at Odds on Labeling Livestock’s Mexican Roots

Ranch manager Ty Keeling trucks young cattle from as far south as Veracruz, Mexico -- a 30-hour journey along cactus-lined highways -- to be fattened in the Texas pastures he oversees. Such imports are key to restocking beef herds depleted by a drought in 2012 that parched Texas grassland and forced ranchers to send steers to slaughter early, Keeling, 32, said. Under U.S. Department of Agriculture rules put in place last year, the meat will have to be labeled as Mexican-born and U.S. slaughtered -- a disclosure that some ranchers and meatpackers say cuts their profit and trading partners say illegally discriminates against their goods. “We need these cattle,” Keeling said as 275-pound (125 kilogram) calves marked with tags showing they’re from Mexico ate cottonseed cubes from a trough near Boerne, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of San Antonio. “At some point, we’re going to get to the point where we won’t be able to buy them anymore.” Canada and Mexico have successfully challenged earlier versions of the label rule at the Geneva-based WTO, which in 2011 and 2012 said the standard unfairly harms meat sales to the U.S. in part by making record-keeping of international cattle too onerous. Canada is threatening to retaliate with tariffs and several livestock groups have gone to court to block the USDA’s enforcement of the tougher new rules. Labeling is good for U.S. ranchers, said Stayton Weldon, who raises 300 head of cattle on 2,600 acres near Cuero, Texas, a stop on the historic Chisholm Trail cattle-drive route linking San Antonio and Houston. He said that while meatpackers want fewer regulations to cut costs, consumers deserve knowledge considered routine in other industries...more

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