A column recently written by two University of Tennessee professors claimed the reinstatement of country-of-origin labeling (COOL) should be revisited by Congress.
“While the U.S. lost its World Trade Organization trade dispute with Canada over the country-of-origin labeling of beef products and Congress subsequently modified COOL, we believe it is time to put the issue back on the policy table,” the column read.
Drs. Harwood D. Schaffer, director of the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, and Daryll E. Ray, retired director of the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, wrote in the column that COOL information can now be provided with little additional cost.
The professors noted that even after COOL was eliminated, the information systems that keep track of the required data are still in use.
“The only difference is that the information is not universally printed on the retail label,” the column read.
