in 2 yrs. we will be allowed to know where our meat comes from

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051103/ap_on_go_co/food_farm_programs;_ylt=AndWnvO1n09m9cy1MHD1PXGs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-

Senate Sends $100B Farm Bill to Bush


The Senate on Thursday sent a $100 billion food and farm spending bill to
President Bush that includes a two-year delay on labels telling grocery shoppers where their meat comes from.

In a separate action, the Senate voted to continue allowing big farms to collect millions of dollars from the government to subsidize their operations.

Approved on an 81-18 vote, the food and farm spending bill would postpone mandatory meat labeling until 2008. Originally sought by Western ranchers and required by law in 2004, country-of-origin labeling has stalled under pressure from meatpackers and supermarkets who call it a record-keeping nightmare.

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america is a crime scene

that meat comes from the grocery store already shrink-wrapped?:sarcasm:

To me, THAT must be a record-keeping nightmare. But if they can do it with apricots, they can damn sure do it with cuts of meat.

Processors buy meat from all over the place and blend it. The hamburger you buy is probably half U.S. and half Canadian beef.

If your orchard only produces Fuji apples or Asian pears, or whatever you're growing, accountability is real easy: tag it, weigh it and let it fly.

If they tag at the warehouse, where there's fifty different varieties of apples and every variety of peaches, recordkeeping would be a nightmare. But if you're only dealing with one thing (or one variety of six different things), it's not too bad.

and he tags every cow. Why can't there be some way for the tags to stay with the cows until they're, um, packaged? I do sort of understand how ground beef would probably have to remain the unknown that it is today. But I would think that with big cuts, it could be done.

Ah, well.

Much to our loss.

Fish producers had HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points--a very comprehensive food-safety system) long before meat producers had it.

Fish producers have had COOL labeling for years now--which is weird, because many species of fish live in international waters.

He buys the cattle from an organic ranch 30 miles from my house. They're offed at a slaughterhouse, but he receives the cattle with the carcass still whole (it's been cleaned and skinned, that's it) and he butchers them in-house. This is incredibly cool for his customers, because we can request any cut imaginable and he can get it for us. If he doesn't have it in the case, he'll walk back and carve it from a cow in the cooler.

Sadly, there aren't many old fashioned butchers like him around anymore. Still, as long as he's in business I'll know where my meat comes from.

by the large chains.

If ya watch how it works, the biggies discount even to the point of making a loss. They can absorb this loss temporarily, but the local cannot absorb the loss so they go under. When the competition bites the bullet then the large chains raise their prices to whatever the market will bear.

I've seen this happen in market after market. The Japanese perfected this competitive method. It used to be against the law to sell below cost to attempt to dominate the market by running competitors out of business.

On the international scene its called dumping and trade sanctions can be imposed.

But since Reagan trashed enforcement of anti-trust laws, the big companies just keep getting bigger.

Now it will work it's way through the food industry. When the shake-up is over, all that will be left will be the big chain suppliers.

It's the Republican way.

I asked my butcher once how he competes with the chain supermarkets and Walmarts. His answer? "I don't".

He sells a product that's unavailable in WalMart or the chain stores...organic beef from local farms that's cut to order. His view is that he isn't competing with them because they don't even sell his product.

Besides, he also pointed out that there are a half-million people that live within driving distance of his store. Even if 98% of the market ISN'T interested in paying more for better quality organic meat, he can make a great living off the 2% that ARE interested.

organic farmer.