WASHINGTON - The Department of Agriculture began to allow the importation of older Canadian cattle into the U.S. on Monday for the first time in more than four years, marking a final rollback of trade restrictions imposed after the 2003 discovery of mad cow disease in Canada.
The change, which drew criticism from some cattle and consumer groups, means that cattle up to 8 years old may enter the U.S. for sale, slaughter or breeding. Initially, the Agriculture Department in 2003 had halted all Canadian cattle imports. But in 2005 it started allowing younger Canadian cattle into the United States.
Canada has discovered nine more mad cow cases since the first diseased cow was isolated in May 2003. The first U.S. case was discovered in December that year in Washington state and involved a cow that was born in Canada. Two other U.S. cases, one in Texas and one in Alabama, have since been discovered.
Some scientists believe that mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, presents itself in older cattle.
The USDA's chief veterinary officer, John Clifford, said that a department analysis shows the risk of mad cow disease because of importation to be minimal.
"We've evaluated the potential risk, and we consider the risk to be extremely small," Clifford said. "There are very much interlocking safeguards in both Canada and the U.S."
The new import provision was praised by some U.S. cattle groups as the normalization of trade after several years of mad cow scares.
"We look at this rule as finalization of a process that started some time ago," said Jay Truitt, vice president of government affairs for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which favors the new rule. "At some point or another we had to get to this."
Other cattle groups opposed the change, as did consumer groups that have long opposed relaxed import rules.
"We think it's a bad idea," said Michael Hansen, a mad cow disease expert with Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports magazine. "It doesn't make sense on the science. The prevalence of [mad cow] in Canada is 30 times the level it is in the U.S."
The disease is believed to be a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, which attacks and destroys the brain and nervous system. No one has been recorded as contracting those symptoms after eating beef in the United States. But in Britain, which suffered a serious mad cow outbreak in the 1980s, more than 100 people died from the disease.
Scientists suspect that mad cow disease can be transmitted to cows through feed that contains animal bone and tissue that is ground into feed for protein. Canada and the U.S. have placed restrictions on just what animal parts may be used to make cattle feed.
The USDA's new Canada import rule makes it legal to import cattle born after March 1, 1999, the date when restrictions were put on cattle feed in Canada. However, 5 of the 10 cases of mad cow discovered in Canada involved cattle born after that feed-ban date, said Hansen of Consumers Union.
"That doesn't suggest that the feed ban is working very well," he said.
Monday's rule change follows a lengthy dispute over Canadian cattle imports, and concerns by ranchers and consumer advocates about mad cow disease in the U.S. and the effect that cheaper Canadian cattle will have on the U.S. market.
Right now, Truitt said, U.S. cattle are priced at about $93 per each hundred pounds, compared with about $70.50 for Canadian imports.
The typical rate of trade before the mad cow scares, he said, involved about 1 million cattle crossing the U.S.-Canadian border annually.
Import opponents argue that large American meat packing companies own cattle in Canada and now can ship them to the U.S. instead of buying from American ranchers. But the USDA's Clifford said the import rule change wasn't made because of pressure from big companies, but to bring the U.S. in line with World Trade Organization standards.
"It's not a matter of pressure from meat producers to go ahead and make this change," Clifford said. "We didn't make this because anybody's pressuring us at all."
When mad cow was discovered in the U.S., the Agriculture Department launched a cattle testing initiative that involved 787,000 cattle. Now, however, the testing has been scaled back to about 40,000 animals annually. There are an estimated 100 million heads of cattle in the U.S.
Clifford said that some "feeder" cattle bound for a feedlot in the U.S. crossed into the U.S. under the new rule Monday.
"It is probably OK," said Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), a one-time farmer and a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, in a meeting Monday with the Tribune editorial board. He wasn't aware, he added, that U.S. officials had cleared the way for cattle to begin arriving in the U.S., but noted, "As long as all the inspections and protocols are in place, I don't have a problem."
Bill Bullard, chief executive of R-Calf, a ranchers group that opposes expanded imports, said the USDA hasn't devised enough safeguards to track imported cattle.
Bullard said that USDA requirements that imported Canadian cattle either be branded or bear an inner ear "CAN" tattoo aren't enough to enable health officials to trace an animal that is found to be carrying mad cow or other diseases. The new rule also lifts a requirement that cattle arriving in the U.S. from Canada must travel in a trailer bearing an unbroken government seal.
R-Calf on Friday requested a temporary restraining order from a federal judge in Aberdeen, S.D., to block the new import rule.
While USDA officials said that livestock tracking systems are adequate, a recent episode in Washington state exposed serious lapses in record-keeping involving Canadian cattle.
Washington's state Department of Agriculture had difficulty determining the age and health of some of the imported cattle, a trade that cattle producers there said was brisk.
State records obtained by the Tribune showed that some of the cattle lacked required health certificates and identification tags. Some of the cattle were already slaughtered by the time those problems were discovered, the records showed.
The change, which drew criticism from some cattle and consumer groups, means that cattle up to 8 years old may enter the U.S. for sale, slaughter or breeding. Initially, the Agriculture Department in 2003 had halted all Canadian cattle imports. But in 2005 it started allowing younger Canadian cattle into the United States.
Canada has discovered nine more mad cow cases since the first diseased cow was isolated in May 2003. The first U.S. case was discovered in December that year in Washington state and involved a cow that was born in Canada. Two other U.S. cases, one in Texas and one in Alabama, have since been discovered.
Some scientists believe that mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, presents itself in older cattle.
The USDA's chief veterinary officer, John Clifford, said that a department analysis shows the risk of mad cow disease because of importation to be minimal.
"We've evaluated the potential risk, and we consider the risk to be extremely small," Clifford said. "There are very much interlocking safeguards in both Canada and the U.S."
The new import provision was praised by some U.S. cattle groups as the normalization of trade after several years of mad cow scares.
"We look at this rule as finalization of a process that started some time ago," said Jay Truitt, vice president of government affairs for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which favors the new rule. "At some point or another we had to get to this."
Other cattle groups opposed the change, as did consumer groups that have long opposed relaxed import rules.
"We think it's a bad idea," said Michael Hansen, a mad cow disease expert with Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports magazine. "It doesn't make sense on the science. The prevalence of [mad cow] in Canada is 30 times the level it is in the U.S."
The disease is believed to be a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, which attacks and destroys the brain and nervous system. No one has been recorded as contracting those symptoms after eating beef in the United States. But in Britain, which suffered a serious mad cow outbreak in the 1980s, more than 100 people died from the disease.
Scientists suspect that mad cow disease can be transmitted to cows through feed that contains animal bone and tissue that is ground into feed for protein. Canada and the U.S. have placed restrictions on just what animal parts may be used to make cattle feed.
The USDA's new Canada import rule makes it legal to import cattle born after March 1, 1999, the date when restrictions were put on cattle feed in Canada. However, 5 of the 10 cases of mad cow discovered in Canada involved cattle born after that feed-ban date, said Hansen of Consumers Union.
"That doesn't suggest that the feed ban is working very well," he said.
Monday's rule change follows a lengthy dispute over Canadian cattle imports, and concerns by ranchers and consumer advocates about mad cow disease in the U.S. and the effect that cheaper Canadian cattle will have on the U.S. market.
Right now, Truitt said, U.S. cattle are priced at about $93 per each hundred pounds, compared with about $70.50 for Canadian imports.
The typical rate of trade before the mad cow scares, he said, involved about 1 million cattle crossing the U.S.-Canadian border annually.
Import opponents argue that large American meat packing companies own cattle in Canada and now can ship them to the U.S. instead of buying from American ranchers. But the USDA's Clifford said the import rule change wasn't made because of pressure from big companies, but to bring the U.S. in line with World Trade Organization standards.
"It's not a matter of pressure from meat producers to go ahead and make this change," Clifford said. "We didn't make this because anybody's pressuring us at all."
When mad cow was discovered in the U.S., the Agriculture Department launched a cattle testing initiative that involved 787,000 cattle. Now, however, the testing has been scaled back to about 40,000 animals annually. There are an estimated 100 million heads of cattle in the U.S.
Clifford said that some "feeder" cattle bound for a feedlot in the U.S. crossed into the U.S. under the new rule Monday.
"It is probably OK," said Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), a one-time farmer and a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, in a meeting Monday with the Tribune editorial board. He wasn't aware, he added, that U.S. officials had cleared the way for cattle to begin arriving in the U.S., but noted, "As long as all the inspections and protocols are in place, I don't have a problem."
Bill Bullard, chief executive of R-Calf, a ranchers group that opposes expanded imports, said the USDA hasn't devised enough safeguards to track imported cattle.
Bullard said that USDA requirements that imported Canadian cattle either be branded or bear an inner ear "CAN" tattoo aren't enough to enable health officials to trace an animal that is found to be carrying mad cow or other diseases. The new rule also lifts a requirement that cattle arriving in the U.S. from Canada must travel in a trailer bearing an unbroken government seal.
R-Calf on Friday requested a temporary restraining order from a federal judge in Aberdeen, S.D., to block the new import rule.
While USDA officials said that livestock tracking systems are adequate, a recent episode in Washington state exposed serious lapses in record-keeping involving Canadian cattle.
Washington's state Department of Agriculture had difficulty determining the age and health of some of the imported cattle, a trade that cattle producers there said was brisk.
State records obtained by the Tribune showed that some of the cattle lacked required health certificates and identification tags. Some of the cattle were already slaughtered by the time those problems were discovered, the records showed.
. 
?