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Texas
Agriculture Archive
October 3, 2003
New, practical BSE guidelines requested
The U.S., Canada, and Mexico have asked the Organization of International
Epizooties (OIE) to come up with new, practical BSE guidelines by the
end of the year.
The group met last week and the three countries want the international body to come up with a simplification of how countries can demonstrate the safety of meat to the rest of the world.
Others have joined the effort aimed at making sure science prevails in BSE rule-making.
BOTTOM LINE: These countries are looking to differentiate
treatment of a single BSE incident (like in Canada) from an outbreak (like
in Britain and Japan).
Source: ProFarmer, Sept. 20, 2003, Vol. 31, No. 38
Through its subsidiary Excel Corp., Cargill Inc. bid $385 million to acquire Farmland Food's pork business. An auction will take place in October to determine if Excel or Smithfield Foods, which previously bid $365 million, will bring home the bacon.
Excel currently has about an 8 percent market share in
pork processing; Farmland has 7 percent. Virginia-based Smithfield is
already the nation's largest pork processor—acquiring Farmland would
boost its market share to more than 25 percent.
Source: American Farm Bureau Federation; Executive Newswatch, Sept.
15, 2003
The General accounting Office (GAO) released a report contending that USDA's estimate of the cost of implementing Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) was inflated and based on assumptions unsupported by documentation.
USDA estimated the cost of implementation at $1.9 billion, a figure that contributed to calls by members of the House of Representatives to delay the program.
This new report will encourage the Senate to provide the funds
needed to implement COOL as scheduled in the 2002 Farm Law. According
to GAO, 72 percent of U.S. trading partner countries require country of
origin labeling for one of the commodities covered by the U.S. COOL law.
Source: Doane's Agricultural Report, The Washington Report, Sept. 12,
2003
