New Legislation in the States Cause for Celebration by Foreign Small-Scale Organic Farmers?

So I just caught on the news ticker on my local 24-hour news channel that new legislation in the states requiring foreign beef and pork to be labelled with where the animal was born, where it was raised, and where it was slaughtered, basically a chain of custody issue that really screws with the whole supermassive-scale slaughter and/or meat processing plant idea (an example of said would be XL Foods, at the centre of last year's international problems with tainted beef). I would like to know what this means to cattle people, from the perspective of people who are closer to it than I am.

My question is, should we be rejoicing? My reasoning for thinking we might is that it does seem to lead in to the kind of responsible chain-of-custody system that lends itself to knowing not just what plant and what batch, but what farm and what animal your meat is coming from. I could easily envision a system that makes use of QR codes printed on labels that would allow one, on one's smartphone in the store, to access live video feed of the farm the cow was born and/or raised on, so that you could bypass the steak from the farm where they stand in their own shit and opt for the steak from the operation where there needs to be a roaming feed because they're pastured and the shelter moves too.

And my idiot government's threatening retaliation (?) because cheap and dirty is just fine with the current administration. I'm not getting political, it's really the agrobusiness lobby, and it's the same whoever's at the helm. I realise that for business-as-usual, this is a shit move, and is essentially calling the state of Canadian meat processing inferior to American, which is ridiculous, as we use identical processes with no less supervision than south of the border, and I'd be surprised if adherence to set parameters was any better.

So comments? Criticism? Does anyone know what the name of the legislation is?

-CK

I am guessing that this would not apply to products from CA, or MX (NAFTA).

The Mexican government already challenged fruits/vegetables requiring labeling, as they said that was contrary to the wording in NAFTA.

And yet we maintain tarriffs on food products on which we have trade restriction boards (dairy, chicken/egg, pork) to be able to operate those boards. And the States do whatever they want with regards to softwood. NAFTA only applies when it hinders the little guys.

-CK

Save fuel and your local small farmers, shop buy and eat local grown food! Do you know your Farmer?

Thanks Paxton. But what I'm really saying is that those industries have effectively been isolated from competition with the corresponding US industries, allowing us to pay six or more dollars per four litres of normal (read: not even organic pasturized bullshit) milk, where just over the border we could pay a third of that. Remember that the Canadian and American dollars are so near par that we occasionally surpass them now. Real free trade would mean that our restriction boards couldn`t exist, and hopefully they`d go the way of the Wheat Board. It just makes me furious. This is FOOD we`re talking about, staples, nothing fancy, dairy, eggs, several kinds of meat, including bacon. Bacon! Is nothing sacred? If local producers didn't have to worry about buying production quotas per head or whatever they do specifically, they could focus on production scaled to local demand, making supply restriction boards pointless. I would still like to see better legislation for the treatment of animals, and I am very happy about the noises the Canadian Medical Association is making at the livestock producers regarding the systemic overuse of antibiotics, but I still favour maximum stocking rates per total land use, maximum time allotments for how long they can stand in the same space without either being moved around in a paddock-shift style or (less favoured by me, but in the spirit of transition to a better way) moved to another paddock while the one filled with feces is mucked out.

-CK