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meatingplace.com – Wednesday
– January 3, 2007
Beef News:
OMB accepts "Rule 2" on Canadian
beef, returns it to USDA for publication
by
Pete Hisey
The Office
of Management and Budget has concluded its review of USDA's "Rule 2" that would
liberalize imports of beef and cattle from Canada and returned it to USDA for
publishing in the Federal Register in the near future. OMB found the Proposed
Rule, "BSE, Minimal Risk Regions and Importation of Commodities," both
"economically significant and a major rule."
Although the contents of the Proposed Rule are still unknown, the Rule is
expected to allow, at minimum, the import of boneless beef from cattle over
thirty months of age, and probably the import of live cattle over that age as
well.
In any case, there are still many steps to come, Ted Haney, chief executive of
the Canadian Beef Export Federation tells
Meatingplace.com. Once the Rule is published, it will be
exposed to a comment period of 30 to 90 days, then another waiting period while
USDA examines the comments, then another review by OMB, and finally possible
Congressional action. "With the change to a Democratic Congress, it's impossible
to predict what the reaction will be," Haney says.
Bill Bullard, chief executive of Ranchers-Cattlemen's Action Legal Fund, which
is suing USDA to prevent imports of live cattle from Canada, says his
organization is encouraging its members to prod their representatives to in turn
urge USDA to cease all action on the Proposed Rule. "We are hopeful that the
(new Democratic-controlled Congress) will intervene with USDA to prevent
adoption of this rule," Bullard tells
Meatingplace.com. He adds that both Canada and the United States
have at some point proposed strengthened feed bans, and that to resume trade in
live animals before stronger feed bans are in place would be "irresponsible."
Canadian beef producers and packers are anxiously awaiting the exact details of
the Proposed Rule, Haney says. While boxed beef from older cattle is a given in
the Proposed Rule, will bone-in beef, live imports for direct slaughter, live
imports for feeding and slaughter, and live imports for breeding purposes be
allowed? Further, what will be the earliest birth date allowed? "That will
depend on when USDA determines is the date at which the Canadian feed ban is
deemed to have become effective," Haney says.
R-CALF's Bullard seizes on just that issue, pointing out that allowing live
animals and particularly older live animals, as well as beef from those animals,
compromises U.S. hopes to gain international status as a "region of negligible
risk" for bovine spongiform encephalopathy. To gain such status under current
standards, no BSE case from an animal born in the previous 11 years can be on
the record. The youngest such case in the United States would have turned 11 in
February 2006. "Possible commingling of Canadian cattle, where a recent case was
from an animal born in 2002, could jeopardize our negligible risk status, and
cause serious harm to cattle producers," Bullard says.
Haney says that while final approval of the Proposed Rule will give the Canadian
beef industry an immediate shot in the arm in the form of higher prices for
"captive cattle" such as older animals that have been barred from export,
longer-range effects will be mixed. The Rule will result in an increase in the
number of cattle flowing south, which will lower the slaughter rate in Canada
and "increase our dependence" on the United States after three years of
rebuilding its slaughter industry, Haney says. Canada has been attempting to
decrease its reliance on the United States, which accounts for well over half of
its exports, by increasing exports to other markets.
The more distant future, however, looks brighter for Canada, as the United
States is expected to use the Rule to encourage more international trade in
over-thirty-month boneless beef and offal, and eventually to press for
relaxation of some bans on bone-in beef. "We've seen signs that some trading
partners would look at acceptance of OTM boneless beef as a window to accept
bone-in beef from younger cattle," Haney says. The United States is also
expected to use the rule as proof that it follows international standards in
respect to beef trade and insist that its trading partners follow the same
standards.
USDA did not return calls for comment.
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