On July 30 the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued its interim final rule for Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling and it is now accepting public comment.

The bill calls for four labels.

Label A would designate meat from animals produced and killed in the U.S.

Label B would be meat from animals produced in the U.S. and another country and killed in the U.S.

Label C would be for meat from animals imported for direct slaughter.

And label D would be meat from animals produced and processed in another country.

Manitoba Pork Council Chair Karl Kynoch says the main outstanding concern is with the label for meat from animals imported for direct slaughter.

Karl Kynoch-Manitoba Pork Council

Back awhile ago we had a lot of concerns that it was pretty much going cut all livestock going south, cut it all off or it would be discounted.

But one thing they have done is they are allowing the Americans to put the product from label A into label B and mix it with label B so, even if they're killing hogs that have been born, raised and processed in the U.S., those can be mixed with, for example, Canadian hogs and be called product of U.S. and Canada.

So that's a real positive.

So any of the isoweans going down or the 50 pounders, they will be able to stay in that category because, as long as the product is there for more than 15 days, it can go into that category.

However we do have some major concerns with the label C which is imported for immediate slaughter.

If animals are shipped out of here at 250 pounds and go for direct slaughter, those animals have to be listed as product of which ever country they've come from.

That is a huge concern right now that we're going to have to deal with and hopefully maybe find some small packers that can deal with that.

Kynoch notes, now that producers have a clearer idea of what the final rule will look like, he is confident they will be able to take the necessary steps to adjust.