IMPACTS OF U.S. COUNTRY OF ORIGIN LABELING ON U.S. HOG PRODUCERS

Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) is a component of the 2002 US Farm Bill. The provision requires that fresh meat and produce be labeled as to the country of origin at retail in the United States. For a variety of reasons that have been addressed in previous research projects, (Meyer and Hayes for example) COOL could potentially result in the reduction or elimination of the trade in livestock between Canada and the United States. More particularly, for the purposes of this project, COOL could eliminate the annual movement of up to 6 million hogs from Canada to the United States.The purpose of this project is to identify the possible economic, structural and social damage COOL could inflict directly on US hog farmers and processors if the imports of Canadian hogs were stopped. In order to achieve that purpose, the project had the following objectives:1. Search and examine existing research on the impact of COOL in the United States.2. Profile US farms purchasing Canadian weanlings.3. Determine the economic disadvantage from the loss of Canadian weaner imports due to COOL.4. Determine the social, environmental and economic cost of building U.S. sow units.5. Determine the economic disadvantage on the US pork packing sector.6. Determine the potential hog price impact.7. Examine cost of compliance issues.