December 27, 2004

 

 

US Beef Industry Recovered In 2004

 

Unlike the Canadian beef industry which was devastated by the revelation of a single mad cow disease case, the US beef industry recovered significantly from its impact in 2004.

 

Consumer confidence and cattle prices rebounded quickly after President Bush's administration proposed new regulations on animal feed and promised to accelerate development of an identification system for tracking cattle from farm to slaughter.

 

The average price that farmers are paid for cattle has hovered around $86 to $89 per hundred pounds for much of this year, compared with the 2003 average of $79.70, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

 

Consumption of beef has increased slightly, from 64.9 pounds per person in 2003 to 65.5 pounds this year. The Agriculture Department believes that consumption is likely to rise again in 2005.

 

"It has been a strong market -- stronger than what most people would have expected -- because we did lose the Japanese market," said Larry Salathe, a USDA economist.

 

There are still some questions about the industry's future. U.S. beef exports are running about one-fourth of what they were before the mad cow case.

 

Japan, formerly the largest overseas market for U.S. beef, remains closed as officials from the two nations work out details of a recent agreement to resume beef trade. Canada, meanwhile, is pressuring the administration to resume buying live Canadian cattle.

 

"Bottom line, we're pleased where we're going," Carstensen said.

 

The strong U.S. consumer demand for beef -- and the fact there have been no new cases of mad cow disease -- may have eased public pressure on the administration to take further action.

 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has never proposed some of the regulations it mentioned nearly a year ago and has no timetable for doing so. Agriculture Department officials say they do not know when there will be a nationwide identification system for cattle and other livestock.

 

The possible measures at the FDA include a number of safeguards intended to prevent infection from spreading through animal feed.

 

"It shouldn't take another positive cow for them to take action on what they have already said they would do," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, who follows food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington advocacy group.

 

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is linked to a rare but fatal brain disease in humans. Cattle are believed to get the disease from eating feed contaminated with infected cattle remains.

 

The cattle disease had never been reported in the United States until Dec. 23, 2003, when Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced that an infected cow had been identified in Washington state. The animal was quickly traced to a farm in Alberta, Canada, near where another case of the disease had turned up earlier in the year.