South Dakota’s Attorney General is among those pushing for stronger rules on the “Product of the USA” label for beef.
Marty Jackley says that it is similar to the “Country of Origin Labeling” push from years past.
“It’s the same concept. So, what we’ve experienced across the United States and here in South Dakota is there’s a mislabeling of beef by certain manufacturers. What we have going is that beef is coming in from Mexico and other places, and they’re putting ‘Product of the USA’ labeling on it. So, a couple of ranchers here in South Dakota filed a lawsuit. We filed a brief to assist. We initially won, and it was appealed by the manufacturers, and so I led a group of about a dozen us Attorneys General, Republican and Democrat— they’re standing up for ranchers and saying we have high-quality beef in the United States, and here in South Dakota, we take pride in our herds. We keep our herds safe and healthy, vaccinations and other sometimes costly means to keep that herd healthy, and we just feel it’s a mislabeling, and it’s a falsehood to call beef from another country ‘Product of the USA.’”
The case could advance as far as the Supreme Court.
Jackley says that when the manufacturers appealed to the 8th Circuit, he knew he needed support from other Attorneys General.
A high-stakes legal case in a South Dakota federal court concerning misleading country-of-origin labeling (MCOOL), such as “Product of the USA,” on food products, will significantly impact U.S. agricultural policy for years to come.
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