July 27, 2005

US continues Canadian beef imports
 

It was supposed to be the court hearing that every Canadian beef producer was dreading-but on Jul 21, US district court judge Richard Cebull suddenly cancelled the hearing that would have determined if the US border should be permanently closed to Canadian cattle.

Cebull's premise then was that the appeals court, which had overturned on Jul 14 his earlier ruling to keep Canadian beef out of the US, had not issued its reasoning for its decision.

This sudden turn of events left R-CALF, an American ranchers lobby group that argued against the border opening and asked for the hearing, in puzzlement. However, they considered this cancellation a "postponement", said R-CALF chief executive officer Bill Bullard.

These hopes may be quite gone now after a 54-page ruling released on Jul 25 delivered stinging rebuke to both the analysis of Cebull and that of R-CALF.

The court said that Cebull erred in agreeing with R-CALF that Canadian cattle imports would bring BSE into the US and cause "irreparable" economic harm to the US livestock industry. Cebull's decision had blocked the US government's plan from resuming shipments of Canadian cattle.

The judges also agreed with the USDA that Canada had taken strong measures to protect its herd against BSE. The lack of Canadian cattle under 30 months of age found with BSE, and the lack of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob cases due to Canadian beef, also resulted in the appeal court's decision to re-open the US border.

Now that the border is open, the US is likely to import 500,000-800,000 head of cattle from Canada this year, USDA's chief economist Keith Collins said last week.

This influx will help US meatpackers such as Tyson and Cargill, which had cut back on production due to a shortage of slaughter-ready animals.

Canada provides about 5 percent of the 35 million cattle slaughtered in the US every year.