May 22, 2013

 

Alberta's beef industry still in decline after BSE

 

 

As Canadians eat less of the meat and fewer producers raising cattle 10 years after bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, savaged the industry, Alberta's beef industry is still in decline.

 

"The financial impact at the time was devastating, both the financial challenge and emotional strain for a lot of producers," said Rich Smith with the Alberta Beef Producers.

 

On May 15, 2003, a lone cow was discovered on a remote northern Alberta farm with BSE. The international reaction was swift as borders slammed shut. To this day, some are still not fully open, such as Mexico and Japan.

 

Now a decade later there's been a sharp decline in the number of cattle producers in Alberta, due in part to an aging population, drought, rising feed and labour costs, the rising value of the dollar and BSE.

 

Ted Haney, with the Canadian Beef Exporting Federation, was in the thick of the crisis at the time and describes the fallout as far worse than anyone expected.

 

"BSE to some degree robbed our industry of that real optimism and in its place has been a shrinking industry under financial difficulty -- not confident internationally and become defensive in its domestic life," he said.

 

The number of animals slaughtered down by million from a decade ago, something Ken Daynard knows first-hand. He worked at the Edmonton Stockyards, one of the city's original businesses, shut down a couple of years after the BSE crisis hit and now an empty field.

 

Before the BSE crisis, the province exported US$2.2 billion in beef products every year. After the disease, that number fell.

 

"In 2012 we exported about US$1.2 billion of beef products around the world so a significant drop from 2002," said Peter Kuperis, an economist with Alberta Agriculture. "We dropped to virtually nothing and then we gradually recovered access to markets around the world."

 

But BSE also left a lasting impression on consumers. Even in Alberta, the amount of beef consumed declined by more than 10% over the last decade.

 

Ellen Goddard, who teaches agricultural marketing at the University of Alberta, said for some it's lifestyle choice, but for others it's about the risk in eating beef.

 

"BSE probably changed peoples risk perceptions considerably. That focused consumers' attention to how cattle are raised and made the industry more conscious of keeping consumers onside. They need to keep public opinion positive about the industry," Goddard said.

 

That has led the industry to make changes including more stringent record keeping, making it easier to trace beef from the farm to the fork, country of origin labelling and more testing for older animals.