April 26, 2006

 

US cattle group votes for attempts to block older-cattle imports

 

 

R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America on Tuesday (Apr 25) announced that members had voted overwhelmingly to approve a resolution to try to block imports of cattle over 30 months of age and beef from such cattle coming from countries where bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, is known to exist, according to a release from the organisation Tuesday.

 

By a vote of 3,815 to 22, members instructed the board to "take appropriate action to challenge and stop USDA (the US Department of Agriculture) from allowing the importation of beef products from cattle older than 30 months of age, as well as the importation of live cattle over 30 months of age, from Japan or any other BSE-affected country," the release said.

 

R-CALF USA by-laws permit every member who owns cattle to vote on policy resolutions, the organisation said. To accomplish this, R-CALF USA mails a ballot to each voting member immediately after its annual convention.

 

Those ballots have been counted, and R-CALF USA members approved all proposed resolutions from the R-CALF USA annual convention in January, the release said.

 

Some US government officials were concerned that two recent cases of BSE found in Canada--both in older cattle--might derail USDA efforts to lift its ban. But US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns defended the efforts as well as the integrity of Canada's measures to halt the disease's spread.

 

The USDA confirmed on Apr 20 that the USDA intends to continue work on a new federal rule that would allow older Canadian cattle across the border, though it will likely take longer than expected to complete.

 

Speaking side-by-side with newly appointed Canadian Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl last week, Johanns said: "We here at USDA are very committed to this ... rule. We're going to do everything we can to move through this rule-making process--make sure that it meets all of the requirements of a very thorough risk analysis ... because we tend to run into litigation with these rules."

 

The US banned all Canadian cattle in May 2003 after Canada's first domestic case of BSE was found. The USDA eased that ban a few months later on some beef and, in July 2005, began allowing in younger cattle.

 

The USDA had first tried to lift its ban on younger Canadian cattle in March 2005, but R-CALF USA succeeded in getting a temporary injunction from a Federal District Court judge in Montana to stop that from happening. It was not until Jul 2005 that the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the injunction.

 

Part of the reason the USDA is eager to allow in the older Canadian cattle is that there are many cow-slaughter operations--plants that specialise in processing older beef and dairy cattle--in the US that need the imports.