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Canadian cattle industry warns beef ban may backfire on U.S.
DENVER, May 17, 2005 (The Canadian Press via COMTEX) -- The longer the U.S. border remains closed to Canadian cattle, the less important the American market will become north of the border as producers there slaughter and process more of their own animals, an official with a Canadian industry group said.
John Masswohl, head of international relations for the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, met Tuesday with Colorado business and political leaders to make the case that his country's cattle industry is safe despite three cases there of mad cow disease. But even if the ban remains, Masswohl said he expects the Canadian cattle business to strengthen and the fallout to grow for U.S. meat packers that used to depend on Canadian cattle.
Keeping out Canadian beef will also drive up prices for U.S. consumers and eventually boomerang on ranchers, he added.
"I think if you get five years down the road, Canadian cattle producers, the ones that can survive and get through this, are going to say 'This was probably one of the best things that happened to us,' " Masswohl said.
Masswohl's trips to Colorado and other states show otherwise, said the head of a ranchers' group that successfully sued in February to block a move by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to lift the ban.
"I think it's in the interest of the Canadian beef industry to regain access to U.S. markets as quickly as possible," said Bill Bullard, chief executive of the Billings, Montana-based R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America.
In 2002, Canada shipped 1.6 million cattle to the United States, its largest foreign market.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, attacks the animal's nervous system. People can contract variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is rare but usually fatal, by eating BSE-contaminated meat.
The USDA shut the border to live Canadian cattle in May 2003 after the country reported a case of BSE. Two more cases were discovered earlier this year in Alberta, Canada. The lone U.S. occurrence, confirmed in Washington state in December 2003, was in a cow born in Alberta.
Several countries banned U.S. beef imports as they previously did Canadian imports. While some have relaxed restrictions, Japan, the largest foreign market for U.S. beef in 2003, has not.
The USDA has allowed imports from Canada of boneless beef from younger cattle and was set to lift the ban on live cattle under 30 months old in March when U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull in Billings, Mo., issued a temporary order halting the plan. The USDA has appealed the injunction to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns on Tuesday announced an industry summit he hopes will speed the reopening of the Canadian border. On a tour of a beef processing plant south of Logan, Utah, Johanns said the round-table discussion next month at the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus will look at the safety of North American beef and economic effects on the industry.
The border closure has cost Canadian ranchers $5.7 billion US, according to industry estimates.
In the United States, a study released in April by the Kansas Agriculture Department says the industry lost between $3.2 billion and $4.7 billion last year because of the mad cow case in Washington state. The effect on the meat-packing business has been significant, said Mark Dopp, senior vice-president and general counsel to the American Meat Institute, a trade group.
"Our best estimate overall is that 6,000 jobs have been lost, certainly in part due to the Canadian border closing," Dopp said.
A federal judge in Washington in March rejected the group's effort to lift all barriers to Canadian beef shipments.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which represents ranchers and corporations, has criticized R-CALF's lawsuit as political.
Masswohl of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association said he believes the motive is to keep U.S. cattle prices high by declaring that Canadian cattle pose a risk.
"The reality is that the risk of BSE in Canada and the U.S. is pretty much the same because we have the same polices and practices and we have pretty much equivalent levels of enforcement," he said.
A closed border will do nothing but cost the United States business and possibly drive up costs for consumers and depress U.S. cattle prices if the Canadian cattle industry expands, Masswohl added.
Bullard of R-CALF, however, said Canada was slower to stop imports from Europe, hit hard by mad cow disease in the 1990s. He questioned the thoroughness of Canada's enforcement of a ban on cattle feed containing cattle parts, the suspected cause of the outbreak in Europe.
"We sympathize with Canadian producers," Bullard said. "But our industry cannot afford to relax our protections. We must prevent that kind of devastation from occurring."
DENVER, May 17, 2005 (The Canadian Press via COMTEX) -- The longer the U.S. border remains closed to Canadian cattle, the less important the American market will become north of the border as producers there slaughter and process more of their own animals, an official with a Canadian industry group said.
John Masswohl, head of international relations for the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, met Tuesday with Colorado business and political leaders to make the case that his country's cattle industry is safe despite three cases there of mad cow disease. But even if the ban remains, Masswohl said he expects the Canadian cattle business to strengthen and the fallout to grow for U.S. meat packers that used to depend on Canadian cattle.
Keeping out Canadian beef will also drive up prices for U.S. consumers and eventually boomerang on ranchers, he added.
"I think if you get five years down the road, Canadian cattle producers, the ones that can survive and get through this, are going to say 'This was probably one of the best things that happened to us,' " Masswohl said.
Masswohl's trips to Colorado and other states show otherwise, said the head of a ranchers' group that successfully sued in February to block a move by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to lift the ban.
"I think it's in the interest of the Canadian beef industry to regain access to U.S. markets as quickly as possible," said Bill Bullard, chief executive of the Billings, Montana-based R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America.
In 2002, Canada shipped 1.6 million cattle to the United States, its largest foreign market.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, attacks the animal's nervous system. People can contract variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is rare but usually fatal, by eating BSE-contaminated meat.
The USDA shut the border to live Canadian cattle in May 2003 after the country reported a case of BSE. Two more cases were discovered earlier this year in Alberta, Canada. The lone U.S. occurrence, confirmed in Washington state in December 2003, was in a cow born in Alberta.
Several countries banned U.S. beef imports as they previously did Canadian imports. While some have relaxed restrictions, Japan, the largest foreign market for U.S. beef in 2003, has not.
The USDA has allowed imports from Canada of boneless beef from younger cattle and was set to lift the ban on live cattle under 30 months old in March when U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull in Billings, Mo., issued a temporary order halting the plan. The USDA has appealed the injunction to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns on Tuesday announced an industry summit he hopes will speed the reopening of the Canadian border. On a tour of a beef processing plant south of Logan, Utah, Johanns said the round-table discussion next month at the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus will look at the safety of North American beef and economic effects on the industry.
The border closure has cost Canadian ranchers $5.7 billion US, according to industry estimates.
In the United States, a study released in April by the Kansas Agriculture Department says the industry lost between $3.2 billion and $4.7 billion last year because of the mad cow case in Washington state. The effect on the meat-packing business has been significant, said Mark Dopp, senior vice-president and general counsel to the American Meat Institute, a trade group.
"Our best estimate overall is that 6,000 jobs have been lost, certainly in part due to the Canadian border closing," Dopp said.
A federal judge in Washington in March rejected the group's effort to lift all barriers to Canadian beef shipments.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which represents ranchers and corporations, has criticized R-CALF's lawsuit as political.
Masswohl of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association said he believes the motive is to keep U.S. cattle prices high by declaring that Canadian cattle pose a risk.
"The reality is that the risk of BSE in Canada and the U.S. is pretty much the same because we have the same polices and practices and we have pretty much equivalent levels of enforcement," he said.
A closed border will do nothing but cost the United States business and possibly drive up costs for consumers and depress U.S. cattle prices if the Canadian cattle industry expands, Masswohl added.
Bullard of R-CALF, however, said Canada was slower to stop imports from Europe, hit hard by mad cow disease in the 1990s. He questioned the thoroughness of Canada's enforcement of a ban on cattle feed containing cattle parts, the suspected cause of the outbreak in Europe.
"We sympathize with Canadian producers," Bullard said. "But our industry cannot afford to relax our protections. We must prevent that kind of devastation from occurring."