Obama Takes Unexpected Setback On Trade Agenda As Fast Track Passes Senate

[Rilgin]

98. Yes That Is The Purpose of a Label

A label gives information to the consumer on where it is from. The consumer can decide what is relevant to them including the sourcing location. It maybe a political choice of not wanting energy use to deliver a product. It might be a discriminating taste bud who can taste differences between food sources.

And yes it probably gives local sourcing a competitive advantage for some consumers but if that matters to the consumer who is to say that is a bad thing. All labels and tradenames give competitive advantage for some consumers. It is only through the capitalist's eye that it is a good thing to mandate that you can not give consumers more information so they can make their own choices regardless of the reason. If local sourcing ends up a competitive advantage, maybe its because it is important to some people. For others it might be irrelevant. If on the whole it is generally a competitive advantage to identify food as coming from one region maybe its because it is human nature for some people to want to support their own locality and smaller individual businesses rather than be forced to just trust major corporations with an international scope.

To touch on this from another direction. Understand, that many food labels do connote locality. Under your theory, for example, it is a bad thing to know where a wine is from when shopping for a wine. All wine labels should just say "Wine". As long as the wine is safe to drink and contains the same alcohol I should not know it.rather than give the vintner because it might give a competitive advantage to a Napa wine rather than a wine from an unknown wine country who has the same percentage of alcohol and makes safe to drink wine. I happen to like pepperidge farm cookies. I know who makes them. I like the taste of vidalia onions. I know where they come from. I like Dutch Gouda cheese more than Gouda I have tasted from Wisconsin. Should I not know where these foods come from as long as I am buying a cookie, an onion or Gouda.