February 4, 2004

New Mad Cow Rules May Cost US Producers $255 Million

US producers may lose up to $255 million a year as a result of the USDA's new mad cow disease regulations, according Gregg Doud, the chief economist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Doud stressed the forecast is "preliminary" and may change.

USDA Secretary Ann Veneman announced on Dec. 30 the new regulations that ban meat from non-ambulatory, or "downer" animals, from the human food supply, expand the types of bovine tissue considered to be a BSE risk in cattle over the age of 30 months and further restrict advanced meat recovery technology to scrape meat from bone.

The new prohibition on downer cattle alone will cost ranchers $50 million in losses annually, Doud said.

Now that downer cattle - either too sick or injured to walk - are not allowed to be processed into human food, producers are forced to send them to renderers which pay far less money for the animals to make products such as pet food.

Doud said U.S. producers sell about 145,000 head of downer cattle annually.