January 19, 2004

 

 

Canada Pessimistic Of US Lifting Beef Ban

 

Canadian Agriculture Minister Bob Speller said he expects to find out Friday how close U.S. officials are to agreeing to lift their ban on Canadian cattle, according to a report from the Canadian Press.

 

However, Speller, who is to meet with both his U.S. and Mexican counterparts Friday, doesn't expect any exact date to emerge from the talks.

 

"Hopefully what I'll get out of the meeting is a commitment to move forward on a process towards opening the border," Speller said in the Canadian Press article.

 

"We need that border open."

 

The Canada-U.S. cattle market is highly integrated, with some seven million cows crossing the border in the last five years.

 

Speller, who just returned from Japan and South Korea, where he met with agriculture officials, said it's hard to sell those countries on taking Canadian beef products when Canada and the U.S. aren't buying each other's cattle, the report said.

 

Japan is willing to keep discussing ways of satisfying safety concerns that prompted that country to ban Canadian products last May after an Alberta beef cow tested positive for mad cow disease, the report said.

 

Japan tests every slaughtered animal for the disease. Officials there are not expecting North America to do the same, said Speller, but want to see similar and equivalent standards that retain the confidence of consumers, the

report said.

 

While the U.S. initially banned all Canadian products, it started allowing trade in some beef from younger cows in September.

 

Late last month, the U.S. said it would ban all sick cattle from the food chain, as well as tissues at higher risk of carrying the protein thought to cause the disease.

 

U.S. officials also promised to increase the number of cattle they test for mad cow from the current 20,000 a year.

 

Canada had already banned brain and spinal tissues from meat products and has agreed not to export to the U.S. any meat from cows too sick to stand or walk.

 

Ottawa plans to spend C$92 million over the next five years to gradually increase the number of slaughtered cattle tested for the disease from 5,500 to 30,000 a year, according to the Canadian Press article.

 

The last major safety area that needs coordinated effort, said Speller, is extending a ban on using cattle tissue in feed.

 

Canada and the U.S. banned such tissue from cattle feed in August 1997, shortly after both mad cow animals were born. Now they are considering a ban on the tissues in feed for other livestock like pigs and sheep.

 

U.S. officials have said they won't make a decision on the border until their investigation is complete. They are still searching for most of the other 81 animals that came from the same Alberta herd as the sick Holstein.

 

But Speller said there's no need to wait because the two countries have coordinated their response to the crisis, the Canadian Press report said.