Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue last week urged global agriculture leaders to resist the European unio’s (EU) demands to place restrictions on the use of common cheese names and other food product names, according to Agri-Pulse. Speaking at a G20 meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Perdue stressed the importance of preserving common names such as asiago, gorgonzola and roquefort for all cheesemakers.

Argentina is part of the Mercosur nations, along with Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, which are working toward a free trade agreement with the EU that would restrict the use of several commonly used cheese names. Mercosur nations risk giving the EU exclusive rights to a number of common names, including asiago, brie, camembert, edam, emmental, feta, fontina, gorgonzola, gouda, grana, gruyere, manchego, mozzarella, parmesan and provolone.

Working through the Consortium for Common Food Names (CCFN) as one of the founding members, IDFA has repeatedly urged these countries to reject the inclusion of inappropriate geographical indications (GIs) in the Mercosur-EU free trade agreement.

Allowing GIs for these cheese names would "clearly constitute de facto non-tariff barriers to trade and, as such, be entirely incompatible with the existing World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay,” CCFN stressed in a letter to the Mercosur nations last November.

IDFA will continue to work to eliminate inappropriate protections for common cheese names that would unfairly limit U.S. market access in Mercosur countries.

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