October 5, 2006

Canada's beef industry to lose Taiwan market

Taiwan would stop accepting Canadian beef next Monday (Oct 9), the USDA announced, raising the possibility that Canadian beef may be banned in more countries and perhaps even in the US itself.

Most Canadian cattle are sent for finishing in the US, raising concerns from US customers such as South Korea that mad cow disease from Canada might affect US beef.

Earlier this year, South Korea said it would prefer not to have Canadian beef mixed in with US beef and requested that its imports of US beef not include any product from Canada.

So far this year, there has not been any sales of US beef to the country despite the recent opening of the market.

Implementing Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) would facilitate such requests and ensure customers receive only beef that is exclusively born, raised and slaughtered in the US, said Bill Bullard, chief of R-CALF, a cattle ranchers group.

R-CALF has been urging USDA to scrap plans to allow Canadian cattle over 30 months (OTM) of age from Canada, until the full scope of Canada's mad cow problem is known.

R-CALF also urged the agency not to allow Canada to export live cattle under 30 months of age to the US.