Farmscape for May 19, 2015

The chair of the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board says, in light of yesterday's ruling by the WTO, the hope is U.S. lawmakers will end the discrimination against Canadian livestock and move past Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling.
Yesterday the WTO rejected the final appeal of the United States over rulings that Mandatory U.S Country of Origin Labelling discriminates against imported livestock, in violation of U.S. international trade obligations, opening the door for Canada and Mexico to apply to impose retaliatory tariffs on a range of imported U.S. products.
Sask Pork chair Florian Possberg warns, if we have a trade war, there's a potential for everyone to lose.

Clip-Florian Possberg-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board:
We know that the U.S. consumers care a lot more about expiry dates and nutritional facts.
I think out of 11 items Country of Origin Labelling was way down the list in terms of concerns by consumers.
Americans trust Canadian raised animals as much as I believe they do their home grown ones so this resulted in discrimination.
It resulted in actually adding a lot of extra cost to processors in the U.S. so there was a lot of needless cost added and not a lot of benefits so we really do hope that the U.S. lawmakers will finally come to the conclusion that it's time to abandon discrimination against Saskatchewan and Canadian animals entirely and just move on.

Possberg notes Canada's ministers of agriculture and international trade have stated we will apply for retaliatory tariffs and, with that pressure, we're hearing high level elected U.S. officials are now calling for repeal of the legislation.
He says if they find the will to get this done and we avoid retaliation that would be the proper thing to do.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council