Farm-Scape is sponsored by Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork Play Audio Farm-Scape is a Wonderworks Canada production and is distributed courtesy of Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork.

Farm-Scape, Episode 1433

The Canadian Pork Council says there is considerable support for a market driven voluntary US Country of Origin Labelling program.

A spending bill, which effectively delays the introduction of mandatory Country of Origin Labelling for two years, is headed to the desk of US President Bush for final approval. A group of US producer organizations and food processors, retailers and wholesalers is now proposing a voluntary program.

CPC Executive Director Martin Rice says there's a lot of support, from those opposed to the mandatory system, for a voluntary system where labelling can be used to attract customers willing to pay for it.

"As one of the suppliers of pork to the US market, Canada would want to see if there are marketing opportunities to put forward a Canadian identity, a Canadian product if there is a US customer interest in that.

We're doing that already for Japan. We're having to look at providing more of a Canadian identity for product in that market.

I think we would look at it on the basis of whether or not there is truly a marketing opportunity there that would justify the cost and investment to not only provide the country of origin identity but also have some supplementary promotion that would create some interest in looking for product with that country of origin identity on it.

As it stands right now, we would not be aware of any strong US market interest in pork that would have a Canadian identity and a Canadian promotion attached to it"

Rice says anything the Canadian industry would do to identify Canadian meat in the US market would need to address a real consumer interest and offer a real potential to extract a premium from the market that would cover the additional costs.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.