Cover Story: Will a Voluntary 'Grown in Canada' Label Help Farmers?
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Federations of agriculture are pushing for a label that identifies homegrown food. But the concept is proving surprisingly controversial
by DON STONEMAN
Pork producer Louis Roesch takes food, and where it comes from, seriously. He thinks that the time is ripe for a "Grown in Canada" label for local food and support for the idea has grown sharply. The concept is not without its wrinkles, though, and not everyone is onside.
Roesch has been pushing for a true "Grown in Canada" label for food for a couple of years with relatively little success. He and his wife Clara have carved out a business selling locally produced food from their farm-based store at Kent Bridge, near Chatham, in southwestern Ontario.
Their local customer base is growing, but buyers come from far away as well. Their farm, 13 kilometres away from Hwy 401, has become a destination for travellers on that thoroughfare. Roesch says that some customers who want to know the origins of their food drive from as far away as Toronto.
Last March, his efforts on labelling started to get some traction. First, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture threw its support behind a resolution from Kent County calling for the national organization, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA), to review labelling rules and guide the development of new regulations with the fundamental principle being that labels about where food originates should not be misleading.
Then the tainted Chinese wheat gluten issue made headlines worldwide. Dogs died after eating pet food made by a Canadian-based company with wheat products originating from China which contained melamine, a byproduct of fertilizer production which had been deliberately introduced to enhance the protein content by fooling testers. Some leftover dog food made its way into swine rations south of the border.
Farmers and consumers alike wanted to know why Chinese wheat gluten was added to products labelled as a product of countries in North America. Roesch says that people have begun to become uneasy about where their food was coming from. Since then the issue has been pushed again on consumer television shows such as CBC's Marketplace.
How do food labelling laws work? Rules governing what can be labelled 'Product of Canada' generally fall within the jurisdiction of the Competition Bureau of Canada. However, food regulations are in the realm of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).
Peter Travers, an Ottawa-based food program officer for the CFIA, says that there are a number of general prohibitions regarding food labelling in different federal laws. Travers says that the basis of the current policy is that "you can't mislead people into thinking they are getting something that they aren't," citing misrepresentations as to colour and nutritional value as examples.
But what are consumers getting and how is "Product of Canada" defined? The rules behind the "Product of Canada" label date back to the 1980s when the ministry of consumer and corporate affairs, which Travers says no longer exists, was encouraging industries to "buy Canadian." This required the development of a definition of what "Canadian" was.
According to Travers, that policy involves two criteria: "You have to be able to demonstrate that at least 51 per cent of your direct cost inputs took place in Canada and that the product was transformed in Canada into whatever the consumer gets."
But Roesch thinks that the current labelling rules do, in fact, mislead consumers about what they are getting. And asparagus grower John Jaques of Thamesville agrees. It's just too hard to figure out whether food came from Canada or not.
"Consumers are doing what they should be doing. They are looking at the label," Jaques says. But the label doesn't tell them if the ingredients came from Canada.
The Americans are no better off than Canadian farmers, says Roesch. When a food product is labelled as Product of USA, there is no indication that the food ingredients were actually produced in the United States. Roesch believes that what is needed is "a true labelling system that is flexible from the farmers' point of view." And, he adds, if there are costs involved, "we don't feel we should be responsible" for them.
Will consumers here pay more for a Canadian product? "That's a tough one," Jaques says. "I think some consumers will pay more, but I don't know what that percentage will be."
Voluntary 'Grown in Canada' label
The issue is still controversial among farm groups and not everyone is jumping on this bandwagon.
Jaques says that labelling doesn't seem to be a top priority for the Canadian Horticultural Council, which is focused heavily on food safety issues. "As a grower, I think (labelling) is an important issue," Jaques says, but he doesn't think farm organizations are as concerned about it as they should be.
Bob Friesen, president of the CFA, says that it will take a long time to change the definition of "Product of Canada" and food processors are committed to the status quo. Instead, the CFA is working to develop a new voluntary "Grown in Canada" label.
Food processors and grocery distributors are on side, Friesen says, and task forces in various industry sectors are developing their definitions for "Grown in Canada." "We are consulting with everyone that we possibly can," Friesen says.
When will they report back? "I hope it doesn't take too long," Friesen says. "Staff is working on it right now. We hope to move this as quickly as we possibly can."
The CFA got some funding from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to survey consumers about food labelling. Between 90-95 per cent of those said that Canadian products should be clearly identifiable on the shelves.
Half of those surveyed said they would be willing to pay a premium and, of those, three quarters said they would pay a premium if they knew the money was going to back to farmers.
"We think this is a very positive way of branding Canada, in Canada," Friesen says. "We think that's a much more positive way of moving ahead than talking about where our imports come from."
Ken Porteous, president of the Canadian Horticultural Council (CHC), agrees that the current "Product of Canada" label is a joke. Orange juice concentrate is re-constituted, bottled and labelled as Product of Canada, he notes. "Yet you know there are no oranges produced in Canada."
More to the horticultural council's point, apple juice concentrate is imported into Canada from China and all that the "substantial transformation" amounts to is adding water and putting it into a can with a "Product of Canada" label. But he doesn't think that the CFA's voluntary labelling approach will address horticulture's concerns and he still favours a country of origin label.
At best a "Grown in Canada" label is a stopgap measure until the "Product of Canada" label rules can be reformed. Porteous wants the Canadian Agricultural Products (CAPS) Act changed. And he wants foods accurately labelled as to where they were produced. "Country of origin is a big deal with us," he says. "The real issue is that consumers are consuming Chinese concentrate and they have the right to know."
The national CHC conference in early March, Porteous says, will focus on putting the final touches on food safety protocols. That protocol for producing fruits and vegetables should become a national standard and is part of a strategy to brand Canadian food, he says. He adds that country of origin is part of that, since food is imported here from countries where rules on what can be used to grow crops aren't nearly as stringent.
Vegetable growers in the middle
However, the country-of-origin labelling campaign may never get far.
In fact, it may not even be legal under World Trade Organization rules and North American trade agreements, according to Clare Schlegel, president of the Canadian Pork Council. Signatories aren't allowed to develop policies which benefit domestic industries, in particular if they disadvantage exporting countries which are already doing business there. "Our position is that we support branding."
Somewhere in the middle is the Ontario vegetable processing board, based in London. "We try to stay out of the debate," says Al Krueger, executive assistant, Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers. While he allows that "it would be nice to see something that is a little more transparent than what is out there at present," he sees a new label as impractical. "We have some sympathy for the processor on this one," he says.
In some years, a sweet corn canner might be short of product and have to source it from the United States.
It's impractical to change the label for that year's production.
The vegetable board's counterpart in Quebec tried to make something like this work. "It's unwieldy. It's difficult," Krueger says. And in the end, it's not up to growers to determine how the product which they sell to processors is marketed. "We sell raw product to them. They process it and they sell it. I'm not sure it's our job to tell them how to sell their product."
How about a voluntary label that talks about "Grown in Canada?" Krueger says that the processing vegetable growers would likely get behind that if the processors were on board, too.
Better Farming called the Ontario Food Processors Association in Guelph in October to ask about its position. Executive director Jane Graham said that directors were going to discuss the matter in mid-December. But when Better Farming phoned back later in the month, calls were not returned.
Krueger wonders whether people are really as concerned about where their food comes from as Roesch claims.
"I have to wonder if that is the typical view," Krueger says. This view makes Roesch smile. He stands by his assertions that people do care where their food comes from.
Roesch pitches local food on the local radio stations, both in his capacity as a Kent county federation director and also as a business operator. He says that, in recent months, the Roesch family business has increased by 30 per cent. That's at a time when local working class residents are losing their jobs as industry falters.
Roesch himself is surprised. He had expected a business decrease in the economic downturn. The fact that it didn't happen tells him that the emphasis on a "Grown in Canada" label is on the right track.
Furthermore, he predicts that, when the voluntary labelling system is in place, there will be such a rush towards Canadian grown products that the old "Product of Canada" label will be outmoded and fall by the wayside or be easily changed with little lobbying of government. And that thought also makes Roesch smile. BF
'Product of Canada' with a USDA stamp
Just before Labour Day last year, an oddly labelled piece of meat in a grocery store in Cambridge caught the attention of a Better Farming reporter. The top of the label read: "Product of Canada, Prepared for Loblaws Inc." Lower down, but in larger letters, the label indicated that the steak was "cut from USDA Select or Higher."
Peter Travers, Ottawa-based food program officer for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, says that the label meets CFIA criteria. Travers says that the beef animal which was the source of the meat was killed and received the USDA grade stamp in a U.S. packing plant, then was shipped to an establishment indicated on the label before it was cut up and packaged on a Styrofoam tray wrap covered in cellophane.
In this case, the establishment is identified as 93A. Travers says that the number identifies this plant as being owned by Cargill Meat Solutions and is located at 71 Rexdale Boulevard in Toronto. A list of food establishments is available on a search engine located on the CFIA website at www.inspection.gc.ca or at
http://active.inspection.gc.ca/scripts/meavia/reglist/reglist.asp?lang=e for consumers who have learned how to decipher the apparent anomalies on the label. BF