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Costly new mad-cow rules a 'fiasco,' slaughterhouses whine

flounder

Well-known member
Costly new mad-cow rules a 'fiasco,' slaughterhouses complain
Margaret Munro, CanWest News Service
Published: 4:39 am
CHILLIWACK. B.C. -- Cattle carcasses hang from giant hooks on the ceiling at B.C.'s largest slaughterhouse. Rivulets of blood and bone dust trail off into drains on the cement kill-room floor.

The animals' lungs sit in a bucket waiting for a local farmer to fetch them for his hungry mink. Other animal parts - the brains, spines and organs that can harbour the infectious prions that cause mad cow disease -disappear down special chutes. They fall into bins that will be taken by waste-hauling trucks along the Trans-Canada Highway to Calgary and turned into everything from chicken feed to dog chow.

But this elaborate and controversial recycling system becomes illegal in Canada this week as part of the federal government's sweeping "enhanced" feed ban.


Font: ****On Thursday, cattle tissues linked to the spread of mad cow disease must be removed from carcasses and destroyed or permanently contained. They are no longer allowed in pet or animal feed, and are banned from fertilizers and bone meal widely used on farms and home gardens.

The change sounds straightforward, but insiders say it is anything but.

"It's a bureaucratic nightmare," says Dave Fernie, who runs a small slaughterhouse in the B.C. interior.

Fernie and many others were still in limbo last week, waiting to find out if the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) would allow them to drop their high-risk tissues in landfills or if they have to ship it to a special processing plant in Alberta.

And the $80 million the Harper government promised to help ease the transition a year ago has yet to reach many people on the front lines whose bills are soaring as they scramble to meet the new rules.

"It's enormously frustrating," says Dennis Laycraft, executive vice-president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, which is asking the federal government for another $50 million to offset the "extraordinary" costs piling up because of government funding delays and continuing confusion about the rules.

"We're not asking for a handout to cattlemen," says Laycraft. The $50 million is needed, he says, to cover the escalating cost of getting the high-risk tissue collected and into landfills while the government resolves outstanding policy questions, and incinerators and other plants are built to destroy the risky tissues.

These so-called "specified risk materials," or SRM, include the skull, brain, eyes, tonsils, spinal cord and the nerves attached to the spinal cord and brain. They must be removed from slaughtered cattle 30 months or older. The distal ileum, a less than one-metre chunk of the small intestine, must be cut out of cattle of all ages.

Under the new rules, SRM must be removed using special equipment and precautions, hauled away in dedicated trucks, processed and then buried in landfills, burned in high-temperatures incinerators, or dumped into composters and bioenergy plants. Permits from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are required every step of the way.

The ban and its paper trail will stretch from the farm gate to slaughterhouses, rendering plants and landfills - which require not just special permits, but often costly renovations.

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=0f4e0fed-bd21-4762-babf-37cd5b597edb&k=42095


Costly new mad-cow rules a 'fiasco,' slaughterhouses complain
Margaret Munro, CanWest News Service
Published: 4:39 am
The 70-year-old company Johnston Packers, for instance, tucked on a mountainside near Chilliwack, B.C., needs a major overhaul: special filters on drains in the kill room to catch any bits over four millimetres in size, separate waste shoots, costly new saws and equipment for removing SRM, and an air-conditioned room dedicated to SRM storage.

Bonnie Windsor, assistant manager of the slaughterhouse, says the $1-million renovation project was derailed by delays in government funding; she and her colleagues have cobbled together an interim solution that entails erecting steel partitions in the kill room and segregating SRM so the plant can continue to operate when the new rules take effect. But there was no government financing available to help offset that cost - which she estimates at close to $200,000 - as the rules say funding for SRM renovations must be approved before the work is undertaken.

"We've been left to burn," says Windsor.


Font: ****At his meat plant in Big Lake, Fernie's voice shakes in frustration as he describes his dealings with CFIA over the ban. "It's been a fiasco," he says.

Fernie asked the CFIA more that a year ago whether he would be able to dump SRM into a dedicated pit at the nearby Big Lake landfill east of Williams Lake with the other waste from his slaughter operation. He was still waiting for an answer last week.

The federal government announced the feed ban a year ago, along with the promise of $80 million to help implement the new rules.

But the money didn't materialize until this spring, when federal Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl started divvying up the funding among the provinces after they agreed to kick in extra funding. The last of the federal-provincial deals to establish "a safe and effective disposal system" - a $3.8 million agreement with Prince Edward Island - was announced on June 29.

Federal officials concede there have been delays but say the responsibility does not lie solely with Ottawa.

The provincial governments are responsible for distributing the SRM implementation money under the various federal-provincial agreements, says Freeman Libby, national director of the CFIA's Feed Ban Task Force.

As for the SRM permits - and lack of them - Libby says the permitting process "is quickly picking up." He could not say how many permits have been issued, but says hundreds must be in place by Thursday to transport, store and dispose of the more than 100,000 tonnes of SRM generated in Canada each year.

"One of the key problems has been the fact that many landfills across the country have not submitted an application," said Libby. Disposal sites must be assessed to see if they meet the new SRM containment rules; the CFIA has hired extra staff and is working with the provinces and landfill operators to get the job done.

---

SIDEBAR:

CanWest News Service

While small and remote slaughterhouses have acute problems with Canada's new mad-cow rules, most of the country is served by special, and pricey, disposal services for the high-risk tissues that will no longer be used in animal feed and fertilizer.


http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=0f4e0fed-bd21-4762-babf-37cd5b597edb&k=42095&p=2


Costly new mad-cow rules a 'fiasco,' slaughterhouses complain
Margaret Munro, CanWest News Service
Published: 4:39 am
The rendering company West Coast Reduction has begun a pick-up service in Alberta, Saskatchewan and southern B.C. for specified risk materials (SRM) that must now be diverted out of slaughterhouses for disposal. The company's trucks will haul the segregated tissues to its plants in Saskatoon and Calgary for rendering. It will be reduced to tallow, which will be purified and sold for use in everything from cosmetics to industrial lubricants, says Barry Glotman, president of West Coast Reduction. The rest of the SRM will be compressed, "dewatered" and turned into meat and bone meal, which has the consistency of fine sand.

The meal will be hauled to Coronation, a small town in east-central Alberta, which is about to become SRM capital of Canada, says John Rush, district manager of Waste Services (CA) Inc., which runs the landfill where it is to be buried.

Rush says the plan is to mix the SRM meat and bone meal with contaminated soil from the oil industry, using a dedicated $600,000 bulldozer. The mixture will be buried in a seven-metre-deep clay-lined "cell" about the size of three football fields. Any liquid that runs out of the landfill will then be collected and pumped 1,500 metres underground. With 80 per cent of Canada's cattle in western Canada, it is expected the bulk of the country's SRM will end up in the Coronation landfill for the next few years until incineration facilities come online to burn it.


Font: ****Jim Long, vice-president of Rothsay, a rendering company that handles animal waste from Newfoundland to Winnipeg, says most of the SRM in eastern Canada is to be collected by dedicated trucks and rendered into dry meal before heading to the landfills.

Meat and bone meal from beef slaughter waste containing SRM material used to be worth about $200 a tonne and was used in animal feed and fertilizers. Now it will cost about $75 a tonne to get rid of the stuff, says Dennis Laycraft of the Canadian Cattleman's Association.

The costs will eventually trickle back down to farmers and consumers, says Glotman.


© CanWest News Service 2007


http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=0f4e0fed-bd21-4762-babf-37cd5b597edb&k=42095&p=3



> The animals' lungs sit in a bucket waiting for a local farmer to fetch them for his hungry mink.


IN this day and time, i wonder if any of the mink are ever tested for TME ?


Over the next 8-10 weeks, approximately 40% of all the adult mink on the farm died from TME.
Since previous incidences of TME were associated with common or shared feeding
practices, we obtained a careful history of feed ingredients used over the past 12-18
months. The rancher was a "dead stock" feeder using mostly (>95%) downer or dead dairy
cattle and a few horses. Sheep had never been fed.

http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/mb/m09/tab05.pdf


STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL 25, AUGUST 1995

snip...

To minimise the risk of farmers' claims for compensation from feed
compounders.

To minimise the potential damage to compound feed markets through adverse publicity.

To maximise freedom of action for feed compounders, notably by
maintaining the availability of meat and bone meal as a raw
material in animal feeds, and ensuring time is available to make any
changes which may be required.

snip...

THE FUTURE

4..........

MAFF remains under pressure in Brussels and is not skilled at
handling potentially explosive issues.

5. Tests _may_ show that ruminant feeds have been sold which
contain illegal traces of ruminant protein. More likely, a few positive
test results will turn up but proof that a particular feed mill knowingly
supplied it to a particular farm will be difficult if not impossible.

6. The threat remains real and it will be some years before feed
compounders are free of it. The longer we can avoid any direct
linkage between feed milling _practices_ and actual BSE cases,
the more likely it is that serious damage can be avoided. ...

SEE full text ;

http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/yb/1995/08/24002001.pdf


it's all about money folks $$$


WHAT about TME and cattle ?


Title: Experimental Transmission of Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy (Tme) to Cattle by Intracerebral Inoculation

Authors

Hamir, Amirali
Kunkle, Robert
Miller, Janice - ARS RETIRED
Greenlee, Justin
Richt, Juergen


Submitted to: International Veterinary Vaccines and Diagnostics Conference
Publication Type: Abstract
Publication Acceptance Date: March 15, 2006
Publication Date: June 25, 2006
Citation: Hamir, A.N., Kunkle, R.A., Miller, J.M., Greenlee, J.J., Richt, J.A. 2006. Experimental transmission of transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME) to cattle by intracerebral inoculation [abstract]. 4th International Veterinary Vaccines and Diagnostics Conference. p. 89. Paper No. PO53.

Technical Abstract: To compare clinicopathological findings of transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME) with other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE, prion diseases) that have been shown to be experimentally transmissible to cattle (sheep scrapie, and chronic wasting disease, CWD), 2 groups of calves (n = 4 each) were intracerebrally inoculated with TME agents from 2 different sources (mink with TME and a bovine with TME). Two uninoculated calves served as controls. Within 15.3 months post inoculation (PI), all animals from both inoculated groups developed clinical signs of central nervous system (CNS) abnormality; their CNS tissues had microscopic spongiform encephalopathy (SE); and PrP**res was detected in their CNS tissues by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and Western blot (WB) techniques. These findings demonstrate that intracerebrally inoculated cattle not only amplify TME PrP**res but also develop clinical CNS signs and extensive lesions of SE. The latter has not been shown with other TSE agents (scrapie and CWD) similarly inoculated into cattle. The findings also suggest that the diagnostic techniques currently used for confirmation of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) would detect TME in cattle should it occur naturally. However, it would be a diagnostic challenge to differentiate TME in cattle from BSE. Our recent preliminary results indicate that WB may be able to differentiate between bovine TME and BSE.


http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=191825



TSS
 

Mike

Well-known member
Maybe a more extensive testing program would rid some of these headaches?

Kinda like the one Japan uses?
 

Bill

Well-known member
Mike said:
Maybe a more extensive testing program would rid some of these headaches?

Kinda like the one Japan uses?

Yep.

I am sure if the US takes the lead, Canada will follow. :wink:
 

Mike

Well-known member
Bill said:
Mike said:
Maybe a more extensive testing program would rid some of these headaches?

Kinda like the one Japan uses?

Yep.

I am sure if the US takes the lead, Canada will follow. :wink:

Maybe the other way around too? When have you ever seen the USDA take the lead?

When the Washington cow was found the USDA had not even approved any "Rapid" tests while the rest of the world was using them in a big way. :mad:
 

QUESTION

Well-known member
Too early to start complaining about the cost of the program when it helps eliminate BSE it is easily worth it . I am waiting to see what is going to happen on the 12th. If the goverment holds to it's word pet food and animal based protein supplements from other countries will be stopped. And these old cull cows and bulls will actually go up in price in order to supply the domestic pet food market. So the cost of getting rid of the SRMs will be balanced off. It is also part of the bio feul iniciative in canada using SRMs in either a bio digester or a blast furnace as feul stock . This just makes sense use a byproduct to make more money just in a different way( energy savings). Rather than digging a pit and burying then waste SRM's.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Choice A is to run a $20 test on everything and continue to salvage SRMs on the animals that pass until none test positive anymore or a live test is approved that will pave the way for eliminating the disease from the country vs Choice B which is to force packers to spend millions and tax payers to dish out more millions to dispose of SRMs at a cost of $50, most of which are prefectly fine, for an indefinite amount of time...... and they choose "B"? :shock:

What does SSGA have to say on this?
 

Kathy

Well-known member
Increases in cow prices would be nice. Canadian made pet food, with all "Canadian" ingredients would be nice to. Don't want to import the ingredients from China, ie: melamine laced gluten.

Pet food should contain meat. I have seen my dog and cats eat a little grass, but they've never ran out to the field to eat grain.

Acres magazine had a good article on the Pet Food recall in their June 07 issue. "The Largest Pet Food Recall Ever. The Real Culprit: Industrial Food Production" by Michael W. Fox, B.Vet.Med., Ph.D., D.Sc., M.R.C.V.S"

A problem for small butcher shops is that the "licensed" companies that pick up the SRMs don't want to go to their shops for the little amounts they cut out. This leaves the small butcher with no one to help him dispose of the SRMs - how the heck is he to get it to the disposal sites, if the collectors won't collect it?

Seems to me, if this is a mandatory requirement - than the licensed collectors/transporters of SRMs should have to pick it up and at a reasonable cost. Putting the squeeze on the little butcher shops with excessive pick-up fees is "extortion".

Burning the SRMs will not get rid of the heavy metals and radionuclides. They will, in fact, become even more toxic by burning, as the protein coating will be burned off, but not the metal nucleating center or "PNC" (proteon/prion nucleating centers consisting of non-ionic metal nanoparticles)...

This is one reason why we have CWD showing up down-wind of the Swan Hills Incinerator located North-West of Edmonton, Alberta (check out the maps from AB Fish and Wildlife): Page 2/2

http://www.srd.gov.ab.ca/fishwildlife/livingwith/diseases/pdf/2006_AB_Sask_border_prg.pdf
 

QUESTION

Well-known member
Sandh you just don't get it, we are trying to totally eliminate the BSE completely not minimize it. Look long term not short term. This is the difference in the mentality between Canada and the US when it comes to animal diseases. In Canada the focus is on elimination of a disease.UNlike in the US
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
QUESTION said:
Sandh you just don't get it, we are trying to totally eliminate the BSE completely not minimize it. Look long term not short term. This is the difference in the mentality between Canada and the US when it comes to animal diseases. In Canada the focus is on elimination of a disease.UNlike in the US

DUH- I don't think you understand-- you could test ALL- which still eradicates the disease- for $20-30 less-- still use the waste product- reassure the consumers of a safe product and actually build a market for your meat rather than having to ride on the US markets hind teat- and you say that Sandhusker doesn't understand :roll: (beat head against brick wall)... :lol: :lol:
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Kathy said:
Increases in cow prices would be nice. Canadian made pet food, with all "Canadian" ingredients would be nice to. Don't want to import the ingredients from China, ie: melamine laced gluten.

I think your kidding yourself if you believe this will raise old cow prices in Canada- actually will lower them and make it more profitable to ship them into the US for slaughter if the border opens....

If the dogfood people need meat for dogfood they can get an unlimited supply of old cull beef from S.A. ( have to be already processed/packaged like they're doing with the soups and stuff because of FMD rules) for less than what they're paying for your cows now.....And as we saw with the Chinese wheat gluten and melamine these whores will go anywhere to make a buck.....Its not like Canada has a big shortage of wheat :roll:
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
QUESTION said:
Sandh you just don't get it, we are trying to totally eliminate the BSE completely not minimize it. Look long term not short term. This is the difference in the mentality between Canada and the US when it comes to animal diseases. In Canada the focus is on elimination of a disease.UNlike in the US

Looks to me that Canada is just trying to surround the fire and let it burn out instead of putting any water on. You don't even know what the extent of the infection is right now. How can you even decide how to eliminate the problem if you don't know the scope of it? Testing would be a hell of a lot cheaper, the clean SRMs could still be used, you would know exactly what you had, and you would know when you could declare BSE history. With the program you have now, it's more hassle, more money, more waste, and you'll never know when it's OK to end the program!

OT's got a good point about the culls coming down here if the border opens as well because of the hassles and costs up there. Then, we'll end up with the diseased SRMs and, because of the loopholes in our ban, the prions will take a short detour thru the non-ruminants and and up in our cattle feed.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Yep-This plan now is just a further divider between the two countries...First off the additional rules tells US consumers that the Canadian government (CFIA) recognizes or believes Canada has a much greater problem than the US (while they still have no way to identify Canadian beef to make an informed choice)...Can't be giving the Canadian consumers a real warm fuzzy feeling either :roll: Then it again pits the US cattleman against The Canadian because with the costs of this rule IF and/or WHEN the border by chance should open to OTM's it would be more economical to ship all cattle to the US for slaughter (where there isn't the cost of these rules)- destroying the US cull cow and bull market-- while making the US the dumping ground of the higher risk potentially BSE infected SRM's..... :mad:

Testing all is what Canada should have done/should be doing instead of this new SRM removal plan - a lot cheaper in the long run, would actually identify how big a problem they have and give them an indication when they have it eradicated, would reassure consumers of safe beef, and could have opened up other markets for Canadian beef instead of having to ride the US's hind teat again... :( :mad:
 

Manitoba_Rancher

Well-known member
Oldtimer how can you say that? Do you actually think other animals should be eating this garbage? It should be incenerated. With all the forms of natural protein around we dont need to be feeding this junk.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Manitoba_Rancher said:
Oldtimer how can you say that? Do you actually think other animals should be eating this garbage? It should be incenerated. With all the forms of natural protein around we dont need to be feeding this junk.

My dogs love both beef and deer guts-- looked like the coyote that killed my calf the other day kind of thought them tasty too.... But maybe your right we should go back a few thousand years and tell nature that that stuff isn't edible or good for them :roll:

Do you think my dogs should stop eating gophers too :???: - cause I imagine they get some gopher guts and SRM type material there too :wink: :lol:

Maybe Kola can advise me on how to make my dogs and cats vegans :wink: :lol: :lol:
 

Manitoba_Rancher

Well-known member
Oldtimer,

I should have said we should not be feeding this material to cattle, poultry, hogs,bison, and horses. These animals werent meant to eat meat materials. When was the last time you seen a cow eating a dead cow?
 

QUESTION

Well-known member
While i have no problem testing everything OTM, what if a test happens not to work for some reason. The SRM rules are a extra safeguard. Maybe it seems that testing and feeding SRM's works but what about your texas cow initially she was negative until the pressure for a retest came so are you saying her SRM's should have been put into the MBM to be fed to more cattle. Would that not potentially infected more cattle. Just get this feeding cows to cows thought out of your head, while cost effective it causes more serious problems and BSE is one example. Maybe it is time to play it safe and eliminate the disease rather than minimizing it. why you guys want to keep doing something that isn't working baffles me. If doing something one way isn't working why would you keep doing it the same way and expect a different result.
Talk testing all you guys want but the reality is because of the canadian changes more countries are taking canadian beef . It shows canada is actively dealing with the problem while others sit around with their thumb up their butt repeating the mantra "nothing is wrong ,the rest of the world is out to get us" Follow the lead set by Canada and stop feeding cows to cows and put up some rules that will eliminate BSE.
Maybe we should go back thousands of years and bred cattle to be omnivores instead of the herbavores they are. That crap about carnivores stopping being carnivores is a bad joke, the reson to stop the feeding of SRM's to as pet food it to be sure BSE doesn't jump to pets. I will not say sorry for being careful. Being wreckless is what got us where we are now maybe it is time to play it safe for a while.
OT maybe you can quit running around saying the sky is falling long enough to realize this with the new SRM rules a ban on US made pet food that may contain SRM's that is not allowed in Canada will gobble up the culls you are so worried about not to mention the rising canadian dollar. But hey this is old hat you know is true, so continue running around the four horsemen are approaching. Mabey time for some of that Jones cool aid should be served at the next r-calf meeting. LOL
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Q, "While i have no problem testing everything OTM, what if a test happens not to work for some reason."

The right test, I believe the Bio-Rad, hasn't missed one yet.
 

IL Rancher

Well-known member
Manitoba_Rancher said:
Oldtimer,

I should have said we should not be feeding this material to cattle, poultry, hogs,bison, and horses. These animals werent meant to eat meat materials. When was the last time you seen a cow eating a dead cow?

I dunno, MR.. I wouldn't feed it to the critters personally but I have seen the dogs drag up a bit of road kill or afterbith and the chickens go running for it.. I have even seen them hunt down snakes and rodents (Laying hens).. Basically I see the barn yard chicken as a rat with feathers.... Wild hogs will eat just about anything they can get their snouts on too.. Omnivore type digestive tract on those critters.. The risk of not just dispossing of the SRM type material is that someone will screw up, via gred or a simple mistake, and it will end up being fed to the wrong critters.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Be a hell of a lot simpler to just make sure the DISEASED SRM's are totally destroyed- and then your dogs wouldn't have to eat that Nellore trim made dogfood....Tysons new Brazil plants will need a place to get rid of that too...

I guess Canadian taxpayers have lots of moldy dollars laying around to help these packers redo/update their slaughter plants- and as I read it, it started a whole new industry of those that now charge for SRM disposal...Give a few Newfies a job-eh.....
 

Bill

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Be a hell of a lot simpler to just make sure the DISEASED SRM's are totally destroyed- and then your dogs wouldn't have to eat that Nellore trim made dogfood....Tysons new Brazil plants will need a place to get rid of that too...

I guess Canadian taxpayers have lots of moldy dollars laying around to help these packers redo/update their slaughter plants- and as I read it, it started a whole new industry of those that now charge for SRM disposal...Give a few Newfies a job-eh.....

:roll:

You really ought to get into therapy if at all possible OVI.
This "small man's" syndrome or whatever problem you have with other countries has certainly become an obsession bordedring on the ridiculous.

Once again you piss and moan because Canadians don't do something and then turn around and whine some more when they do.
 
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