Many consumers want to know where their food comes from. American ranchers are right there with them.

Rancher organizations filed a lawsuit against the USDA to ensure it’s clear when foreign beef and pork is sold at the grocery store. The ranchers say the law requires a country-of-origin label on foreign meat all the way to sale to the consumer. Rewrapping by American meatpackers, they say, doesn’t make it American meat.

The USDA has argued in court documents that imported meat can be treated as domestic if the importing country has similar standards as the United States.

A judge will decide what the law says. The bigger question is: What should the law do? Should the federal government require the labeling or should it be optional?

There is no doubt many consumers would prefer to know. But that can happen without a federal law requiring it, so it hardly seems necessary to require it. U.S. ranchers can work with meatpackers to distinguish their product on the label.

Some countries certainly do a better job of policing their products than others. Most beef imported into the United States comes from Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Canada is by far and away the biggest exporter of pork to the United States with Poland coming in a distant second.

As for China, in many recent years, no beef and no pork has been imported from China. Much more comes regularly from Croatia than China. Of course, that could change.

Consumers should be able to decide for themselves if they want to eat meat with a clearly labeled country of origin. But they don’t need the government to do that.