Animal Agriculture: Selected Issues in the 108th Congress

Publication Date: October 2003

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Agriculture, forestry and fishing

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Abstract:

Animal agriculture accounts for a significant segment of U.S. agriculture: in 2002, for example, U.S. farmers and ranchers received $94 billion from the sale of animal products, or about half of all U.S. farm cash receipts.

Various issues important to animal agriculture have generated interest among lawmakers in the first session of the 108th Congress. For example, under the 2002 farm bill (P.L. 107-171) many food stores in 2004 must provide country-of-origin labeling (COOL) on ground and fresh cuts of beef, pork, and lamb. The Housepassed USDA appropriation for FY2004 (H.R. 2673) would block funding to implement COOL for meats. The Senate committee version (S. 1427) lacks the ban.

Elsewhere, lawmakers are keenly interested in the effectiveness of U.S. food safety and animal health programs -- particularly after Canada announced, on May 20, 2003, that one of its cows had "mad cow disease" (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE). The United States responded by banning all imports from Canada of live ruminants and their products. On August 8, 2003, USDA announced steps to begin lifting the ban on some meat products, based on what it said was a scientific assessment of risk. USDA also unveiled a voluntary "Beef Export Verification" program aimed at satisfying a related demand by Japan, the top market for U.S. beef (and pork), for verification that U.S. beef imports are not of Canadian origin. The COOL and BSE issues have rekindled interest in whether the United States should move more quickly toward a universal animal identification (and, possibly, meat traceability) system.