Do you think mandatory country-of-origin label on goods are necessary? Mandatory country-of-origin labelling costs very much and there seems to be very few benefits.

 

See http://www.countryoforiginlabel.org/overview.htm

Do you think mandatory country-of-origin label on goods are necessary? Mandatory country-of-origin labelling costs very much and there seems to be very few benefits.

 

See http://www.countryoforiginlabel.org/overview.htm

 

In the case of beef, I wouldn't want to buy it that originated in a country with a high incidence of BSE (Mad Cow Disease) - also some foreign countries are not as careful about cleanliness of food handling procedures. Food bourne illness can be devastating - I have a friend who suffered complete kidney failure from it. She will be on dialysis for the rest of her life.

Actually I'm not sure that there's any such thing as a "high incidence" of BSE. People are regularly eating locally grown beef in all of the countries that have been affected by BSE with no ill effects, and to me that seems like a great example of media frenzy outweighing the facts.

 

But yeah I agree about food bourne illness in general. We need to pay more attention to food preparation in particular. But getting back to the subject of the thread, I could see benefits of labelling in that case.

 

In fact I don't really have a problem with origin labelling in general. I have a right to know where the stuff comes from, right?