Recently, US farmers won a major victory as meat packers failed to weaken a program requiring country-of-origin labeling of meat and produce. Meat and supermarket lobbyists were unsuccessful in putting a provision into a congressional spending bill that would have made food labels voluntary instead of mandatory by September 2006.

Dave Frederickson, President of the National Farmers Union, says country-of-origin label would help US farmers.

[Frederickson1] "Many of the larger packers across the country oppose it and they oppose it because they like to blend product. In other product from one country blended with product from the USA. So, you can take a piece of stringy beef from some other country and blend it with a good product from the United States and come up with a mediocre product."

Supporters of labeling expect another attempt next year to gut the legislation before it takes effect.