November 25, 2003

 

 

Canada To Limit Imports of Non-North American Beef

 

Canada, where one case of mad-cow disease earlier this year hamstrung the livestock sector, will limit imports of non-North American beef for the foreseeable future, the farm minister said last Friday.

 

After the May 20 discovery of one case of brain-wasting bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Ottawa stopped granting supplementary import permits, which allow countries outside the North American Free Trade Agreement to exceed Canada's yearly limit of 76,000 tons of imported beef.

 

Canada had imported extra beef from countries like Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay and Argentina until July.

 

"There has not been a specific deadline put on that," Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief said.

 

"There has been a report from all of the industry that has been made ... what it recommended was we should continue along the same line we are."

 

Vanclief discussed the supplementary import permits after announcing C$120 million ($92 million) in federal compensation for cattle farmers hit by extremely low prices for older animals after the mad cow crisis. Provinces could top the aid up with as much as C$80 million.

 

Farms totaling some 390,000 beef cattle and 169,000 dairy cows would be eligible for the aid, Vanclief said.

 

The compensation, assuming all 10 provinces contribute, could pay farmers up to C$159 a head for 6% of a beef herd and 16% of a dairy herd. It would also offer C$1 a day to feed cattle to May 24.

 

"The main flaw in the program is that the cattle must be slaughtered for the payment to be collected," said Canadian Cattlemen's Association president Neil Jahnke. "Experience has shown this will reduce the payment made by the marketplace."

 

($1=$1.30 Canadian)