Some 660 million pounds of extra lean beef trimmings will be allowed into the country this fall, and a coalition of farm and consumer groups wants shoppers to be able to tell where their beef came from.
The National MCOOL Coalition began circulating a petition in the first days of September. It asks the White House and Congress to bring back mandatory country-of-origin labeling, known as MCOOL, for beef. The campaign is called “Label Our Beef.”
The timing is tied to a proclamation from President Donald Trump. It lifts the quota for lean beef trimmings by 300,000 metric tons, a bit over 660 million pounds, for the period from Sept. 1 through Nov. 30. Imports were already running at record levels, and the administration had earlier raised the quota for beef from Argentina. The coalition says all of that makes labeling more urgent. Its goal is a label that separates imported beef from beef made only from cattle born, raised and harvested in the United States.
Senate committee vote
Supporters point to Capitol Hill as the reason to push now. In August, the Senate Agriculture Committee voted 17-6 to advance MCOOL as part of the Farm Bill. The petition asks ranchers, shoppers and others who back American agriculture to sign it and pass it on.
“If Washington is going to open the door to hundreds of millions more pounds of imported beef, then American consumers should at least have the right to know where the beef they are buying comes from,” said Joe Maxwell, president of Farm Action Fund. He called the issue “truth in the marketplace.”
Matt Van Schyndel, who owns Hedge Holler Harvest and belongs to the Missouri Rural Crisis Center and National Family Farm Coalition, put a number on the problem. The country brought in 5.4 billion pounds of boxed beef in 2025, he said, and buyers often cannot learn where any of it came from.
Jeanie Alderson of Northern Plains Resource Council runs a cow-calf operation and a direct-to-consumer beef business with her family. Both, she said, depend on mandatory labeling. “Simple as that!” she added.
The repeal and the trade talks
Congress scrapped the original labeling rule more than ten years ago. Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at Consumer Federation of America, said the stated reason was that it purportedly broke U.S. treaty obligations to Canada and Mexico, and that it happened despite overwhelming public support. The administration is now renegotiating those trade deals. “There is no excuse for keeping consumers in the dark,” he said.
Jon Toomey, president of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, tells the repeal differently. In his account, multinational meatpackers teamed up with foreign trade ministries to win an adverse ruling in Geneva, then threatened U.S. producers with retaliation authorized by the WTO. Every year Congress waits, he said, is “another victory for global packing houses and the WTO.”
Dave Hyde, president of R-CALF USA, said foreign and domestic adversaries have for too long blocked American cattlemen from promoting a true product of the USA. “MCOOL ends that,” he said.
Rebecca Wolf, food policy director for Food & Water Watch, asked President Trump and Congress to restore the label so American producers get an even playing field. Gilles Stockton of the Western Organization of Resource Councils said the country “cannot import our way out of a broken food system.” He wants incentives for new ranchers and limits on the power of food monopolies, alongside MCOOL.
Groups on the petition are Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment, Coalition for a Prosperous America, Consumer Federation of America, Dakota Resource Council, Farm Action Fund, Food & Water Watch, National Family Farm Coalition, Northern Plains Resource Council, Powder River Basin Resource Council, R-CALF USA, and Western Organization of Resource Councils.
Sources
- National MCOOL Coalition Launches Petition Calling on White House, Congress to Label Our Beef – R-CALF USA
- National MCOOL Coalition Launches Petition Calling on White House,
