CALF_News_October_November_2020

17 CALF News • October | November 2020 • www.calfnews.net Continued on page 19  “Canada has some of this information for their exports but doesn’t have the export certificates available like we do – the letterhead certificates,” McEndaf- fer explains.“Most countries don’t have these requirements publicly available, so many countries check our list, as well.” All U.S. exporters check this Export Library to determine if they can ship a certain type of product, or if we have access to a particular market. “If there are certain labeling require- ments, facility requirements, or live animal requirements, these are all listed,” she says.“Some listings like Canada or the European Union are huge, while other listings, like Syria, are minimal. There several ways this information gets listed. First, would be if our govern- ment has a formal access discussion or an export certificate creation discussion with that foreign government. This could be initiated by either the U.S. or the other country. It could also happen through a free trade agreement (FTA) discussion – the technical component to export under an FTA,” she says. New Agreements McEndaffer was very involved with rationalization of export documentation for Canada as a result of the new United States-Mexico-Canada agreement (USMCA) agreement that went into effect July 1, 2020. “We had some of this in the old agreement, but as a result of the new the USMCA, we’re able to cut down the paper load,” Seng says.“In Europe, they used to joke that for every pound of meat, you had a pound of paperwork. “We’ve had challenges to our system since it began, especially by the EU, going back to the 1980s – a tug-of-war over who would have sovereignty over our plants. This is a big issue that has come up since we’ve tried to harmonize international standards,” he says. It’s not just the EU raising this issue; some other countries also want to audit the whole process – from birth to slaughter.“Our philosophy has always been end-product testing. We are not as concerned about how we produce the meat; we just want to know, at the end of the day, that it is safe and wholesome,” Seng says. “Part of what was done in the multi- lateral WTO negotiations was to make sure that everything would still be some- what consistent withWTO and these international standards,” he says. One of the newer developments is electronic certificates.“The U.S. has been a little slow on this, compared to some of our competitors.We might wonder why we are not selling to a certain country, or doing better in competing with some other countries. The electronic certificates have simplified things, and I am excited about what Cheyenne McEndaffer was able to do with Canada on these certifi- cates,” Seng says. “The more we can simplify, the more we can expedite; the more likely we are going to sell the product. “Sometimes the impediment to selling American beef has nothing to do with the beef; if it’s twice as much paperwork going back and forth and you don’t have