Wednesday September 06, 2006
High River Times — Here's some information to sink our teeth into this week that's beefy and good news.
The Alberta Beef Producers expect work on expanding trade with the U.S. will speed up once again. I had a chat on the phone with chairman Darcy Davis as he was taking some time out from fieldwork repairing a swather. Davis said the completed investigation on the second-last Alberta case of BSE, the Edmonton dairy cow, was closely followed by the Americans and should step up work on Rule 2, allowing over 30-month-old animals back across the border. He said the U.S. Department of Agriculture never did stop work on Rule 2, just withdrew it back from the Office of Management and Budget. "But at the same time they said they're not halting work on it altogether," he said. "They were waiting for the results of this epidemiological report. They did send someone up to investigate and those investigations look like they are coming to a conclusion, so we hope they get the rule back on the rail again here soon."
Davis said the age of the 50-month-old dairy cow was a concern, as it was born after the 1997 feed ban. He concluded the U.S. has confidence in this country's feed ban and it's due to be "beefed up" in the coming months, removing all specified risk materials from the meat and bonemeal system. "We're going to try and eradicate BSE from our herd." The latest case in a mature beef cow, the CFIA hasn't said where she's from, continues to be investigated.
Speaking of BSE trade, the U.S. resumed shipments of its beef to Japan this summer but apparently it's not selling well yet. It's reported to be only available at Costco stores in the island nation, although one restaurant chain is going to pick it up to sell as a barbeque product. So how's Canadian beef doing in Japan? Well, Ted Haney of the Canada Beef Export Federation said while we are well below pre-BSE levels, growth continues. Presently, he said Canada ships about 12 per cent of before the ban levels per month, with June completely eclipsing the tonnage from January through April. Haney said when the final figures are in, he expects July to be even better. Canada was shipping 2,000 tons of beef per month prior to BSE. This June Japan received 210 tons. Haney stressed the importance of tying birth dates to ear tags in this market that only accepts beef from cattle under-21 months old. He said some packers are paying a premium for the age-verified animals and hoped that a shortage of the young animals doesn't affect exports.
There you go, age verification. I went on to the Web site to do a few birthday recordings of my own. It's not too bad, all things considered, although it does have that wonderful computer trait of saying: "You can't go on, something's wrong but I'm not going to tell you what it is, you guess." (No, the computer doesn't actually say that but that's the gist I got when I translated the computerese). After a few trial runs and getting the right information on the right line, I did get my calf birth dates recorded. If I got it right, it seems you just have to record the start-of-calving date and boom, you're done. If you aren't computer confident or don't want to go through the technological hassle, there is help available from both the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency and your local auction market.
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High River Times — Here's some information to sink our teeth into this week that's beefy and good news.
The Alberta Beef Producers expect work on expanding trade with the U.S. will speed up once again. I had a chat on the phone with chairman Darcy Davis as he was taking some time out from fieldwork repairing a swather. Davis said the completed investigation on the second-last Alberta case of BSE, the Edmonton dairy cow, was closely followed by the Americans and should step up work on Rule 2, allowing over 30-month-old animals back across the border. He said the U.S. Department of Agriculture never did stop work on Rule 2, just withdrew it back from the Office of Management and Budget. "But at the same time they said they're not halting work on it altogether," he said. "They were waiting for the results of this epidemiological report. They did send someone up to investigate and those investigations look like they are coming to a conclusion, so we hope they get the rule back on the rail again here soon."
Davis said the age of the 50-month-old dairy cow was a concern, as it was born after the 1997 feed ban. He concluded the U.S. has confidence in this country's feed ban and it's due to be "beefed up" in the coming months, removing all specified risk materials from the meat and bonemeal system. "We're going to try and eradicate BSE from our herd." The latest case in a mature beef cow, the CFIA hasn't said where she's from, continues to be investigated.
Speaking of BSE trade, the U.S. resumed shipments of its beef to Japan this summer but apparently it's not selling well yet. It's reported to be only available at Costco stores in the island nation, although one restaurant chain is going to pick it up to sell as a barbeque product. So how's Canadian beef doing in Japan? Well, Ted Haney of the Canada Beef Export Federation said while we are well below pre-BSE levels, growth continues. Presently, he said Canada ships about 12 per cent of before the ban levels per month, with June completely eclipsing the tonnage from January through April. Haney said when the final figures are in, he expects July to be even better. Canada was shipping 2,000 tons of beef per month prior to BSE. This June Japan received 210 tons. Haney stressed the importance of tying birth dates to ear tags in this market that only accepts beef from cattle under-21 months old. He said some packers are paying a premium for the age-verified animals and hoped that a shortage of the young animals doesn't affect exports.
There you go, age verification. I went on to the Web site to do a few birthday recordings of my own. It's not too bad, all things considered, although it does have that wonderful computer trait of saying: "You can't go on, something's wrong but I'm not going to tell you what it is, you guess." (No, the computer doesn't actually say that but that's the gist I got when I translated the computerese). After a few trial runs and getting the right information on the right line, I did get my calf birth dates recorded. If I got it right, it seems you just have to record the start-of-calving date and boom, you're done. If you aren't computer confident or don't want to go through the technological hassle, there is help available from both the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency and your local auction market.
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