European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 15, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                May 2007 stars and stripes Mideast edition Page 13 opinion should the food Industry be required to list foods country of origin yes labels Are needed and a Good idea by Ronnie Cummins Consumers want and need country origin labels on recent food poisoning scan linked to contaminated pork and poultry food ingredients from along with tainted produce and have taken away Many americans appetites for cheap imported although polls indicate that the Over whelming majority 82 percent of americans want to know where our food is coming big food and Washington bureaucrats have United to deny us this lobbyists for corporate agribusiness such As the american farm Bureau giant food manufacturers such As Smith Field and Colagra and supermarket chains have handed Over millions of Dol Lars to an Industry indentured Congress to keep us in the dark about the country of origin of the hundreds of billions of Dol Lars of foods we buy every year in super markets or consume in shocked by Media reports that the food and drug administration inspects Only 1 percent of All imported food ship increasing numbers of health minded Consumers have complained to their elected Public they Are demanding that the government increase Foo safety inspections which unfortunately have been reduced by Al most 50 percent under the Bush administration and require mandatory coun Tryo origin labels for with the centers for disease control and prevention admitting that americans suffer from More than 78 million cases of food poisoning every resulting in deaths and food safety and lax government regulation have become important issues for Many compounding growing Foo safety con the Public is becoming aware that greenhouse Gas pollution in Large part derived from Coal Energy intensive Industrial agriculture and Lon distance food transport is disrupting our climate with Likely dire con some of which already Are be coming the average food item in a super Market today has travelled Between to Miles from farm to with sales of imported food doubling Over the past meanwhile thousands of North Ameri can family Farmers Are being forced off the land every mainly because giant retailers and manufacturers find it More lucrative to buy food products from overseas producers such As where environmental and labor exploitation Are the and where Farmers Are Lucky to make a Dollar a Given All of these its no wonder millions of americans Are turning to local and organic food for their Fame and now for their pets As european nations and most other industrialized nations require mandatory coun Tryo origin labels on reacting to the longstanding concerns of their cons tit reflected in polls indicating that 80 percent of americans want country Gin food Congress finally incorporated such labels into the 2002 farm supposedly to go into effect in september corporate agribusiness and supermarket chains influenced an ethically impaired Congress with millions of dollars in Campaign contributions to Block implementation of the As a americans continue to buy billions of dollars of imported foods every year in most cases without even know ing in order to safeguard Public health and environmental and to no ins import sections More ant for safety by Diana Ernst san Francisco contaminated chinese wheat Gnu recently identified in Ameri Cas pet has spurred Calls in Congress for increased Foo safety yet the Senate already is consid ering a mandatory country origin Label ing which will add costs but wont in crease some think our safety depends on Label ing Laws that reveal which countries grow every ingredient in foods that shows up on supermarket shelves or restaurant 71 save North american family we need to restore our Basic right to know where our food is coming to do this we must be willing to raise our both in the marketplace and in the political we must demand that Congress respect the desires of the nations Consumers and require coun Tryo origin labels for both conventional and organic at the same time we need to vote with our pocketbooks for health and sustain ability by patronizing those food Compa natural food Independent grocers and restaurants that Are Al ready voluntarily Labelling food products according to their country of Ronnie Cummins is National director of organic Consumers association in but this is country origin Labelling confuses Protection with the food and drug administration regu lates billion in Domestic foods and billion in there have been health incidents with both the mad cow Dis ease outbreak in 2003 and the spinach Coli outbreak last year Are examples of for eign and Homegrown Foo safety the new Labelling proposal intends to expedite retail Labelling of peanuts and fresh and Frozen fruits and veg two exceptions Are processed foods that have been transformed or processed upon entering the United states because it is difficult to separate their and restaurants and cafeterias for which la Beling food would be extremely supporters of mandatory Labelling invoke disease outbreaks or even terrorist sparking Calls for big government Labelling Doest actually help Foo safety agencies locate the source of according to the Fra and the centers for disease control and Preven investigating such outbreaks is a complicated and timely with or without la if a dangerous product makes it to the the Fra already has agr marketing is an innovative business where suppliers change the food marketing Institute estimates that both suppliers and retailers would routinely have to update their labels when the Label ing proposal goes into this requires paperwork and higher prices for con Fri found that when a retailer tested country origin Labelling with fruit packages had to be hand labelled since fruit comes from varying the Cost for each store was More than a averaging billion per year for labels showing that a cow was born in raised in Canada and slaughtered in the Tell the consumer nothing about food neither is there sufficient Evi Dence that labels determine our decisions to Purchase if they Consumers would pay extra for grocers to provide More serious is the possibility that imported food is shifted into which then become subject to the Labelling restaurants would certainly go out of business trying to Label their its not fair for the government to penalize All chinese food Compa Nies by requiring different chinese food companies compete with one if one software firm sold a product in China that caused computers to it would not help chinese computer users if their government mandated countr Ofori Gin labels for All what counts is safety not la companies have taken it upon them selves to guarantee Quality because the government has proved other recent ideas include million for Fra food and the Safe food which would Combine 15 food regulating agencies into one supposedly to improve the effectiveness of when unburdened by government restrict food companies will devise their own methods of ensuring Safe products in response to consumer not Capitol free Market methods will prove less costly and More effective than protectionist government Diana Ernst is a Public policy fellow at the Pacific research Institute in san prickly City by Scott Stantis i cant you dont have e wits of youtube