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AgWeek – Monday – August 20, 2007 Recipe for disaster?By Matt Bewley, Agweek Staff WriterFERGUS FALLS, Minn. - If a USDA-proposed rule gains approval by Congress this year, U.S. beef producers could be facing infection in U.S. herds, according to industry experts, resulting in a massive exodus of buyers from their once-thriving foreign export markets. “It would devastate our industry,” says Bill Bullard, chief executive office of Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund USA. “Because of the long incubation period of BSE, if we started to detect BSE cases, it would suggest that our mitigation mea sures since the 1990s have not been effective in controlling the disease. That is precisely what Canada has discovered.” BSE, also called mad cow disease, first was detected in the Alberta province of Canada in late 1993, having been imported in 1987 from the BSE-infested United Kingdom. Because of BSE's multiyear incubation period, it was not discovered in a native Canadian cow until May 2003. Seven months later, an animal imported from Canada was detected with BSE in a Washington state slaughterhouse. The impact on U.S. beef exports was immediate and severe. “Over 50 countries stopped buying U.S. beef,” Bullard says. Guilt by association According to data from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, the value of U.S. beef exports fell from $3.1 billion in 2003 to less than $6 million in 2004, a loss of more than $2.5 billion. Since that time, 10 more cases of BSE have been discovered in Canada, including five in 2006 and two more so far in 2007. The Canadian market remains crippled, and even with the closing of U.S. borders to older Canadian cattle, U.S. beef still suffers. “Our export customers have imposed some very stringent restrictions on U.S. beef exports,” Bullard says, “not because we have a continuing BSE problem, but rather because we continue to import the BSE problem into this country from Canada.” According to a USDA report, “After three years, in 2006, U.S. beef exports (had) recovered to only $1.5 billion - less than half the value received in 2003.” The report says the total three-year loss “to the U.S. beef industry caused by the BSE discovered in Canada is approximately $6.3 billion.” Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., recently attempted to introduce an amendment to ban cattle and beef imports from countries with ongoing BSE problems. The legislation would include Canada. “Cubin's amendment would minimize food safety risks from BSE-affected countries and strengthen U.S. import restrictions, which would boost confidence among U.S. export customers,” Bullard says. Though House rules prevented Cubin from introducing the amendment, Bullard says “R-CALF will immediately work to see if we can get this amendment included in the Senate version of the farm bill, and work to have it as a stand-alone piece of legislation in the U.S. House.” Flawed safeguards Part of the current problem with foreign confidence in the U.S. herd is a large hole in the protection of the cattle feed system. BSE is not directly communicable from one cow to another. It has long been established that the spread of the disease, as in the U.K., primarily is caused by BSE-infected bovine animal products in cattle feed. Certain portions of the cow - the brain, eyes, spinal column and a portion of the small intestines - carry the disease after death. Because of this, feed restrictions were quickly put into place on all cattle feed in the U.S., preventing the addition of bovine products. However, this was not extended to include for feed for hogs, poultry, horses or pets. This omission creates the possibility of cross-contamination through feed chutes and delivery devices that are shared for cattle and other animal feeds. This same problem was the cause of much of Canada's subsequent infections. “Cross-contamination of the feed supply is considered to be the cause for one-half of all Canadian BSE cases,” Bullard says. “We are at risk of infecting cattle because we presently allow even the highest-risk tissues to be rendered for other animals.” According to an R-CALF release, after Canada's 12th case of BSE surfaced in May, Canada recognized that its BSE prevention measures were inadequate. The country implemented cross-contamination regulations July 12 (though these actually had been announced June 26, 2006, after its seventh case). The United States, however, still has not adopted adequate cross-contamination regulations. Foreign buyers know this, and should another infected animal turn up in the U.S. herd, they likely would be unwilling to commit to U.S. beef purchases. Recognizing Canada The USDA proposal also attempts to recognize Canada as a “BSE minimal-risk region,” thereby facilitating the import of Canadian cattle older than 30 months. One of the primary qualifications for this designation is “that the region have in place and enforce risk mitigation measures adequate to prevent widespread exposure and/or establishment of the disease.” Bullard contends that Canada does not meet the qualifications for this designation, citing research by Dr. Louis Anthony Cox Jr., an expert in risk assessment and mathematical modeling from Denver. The empirical evidence available to USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service “shows that BSE is now firmly established in Canada and that geographically widespread exposure not only has occurred, but appears to have continued even after Canada's feed bans.” The primary threat to U.S. herds, though, is in allowing certain high-risk animals to be imported from Canada. The United States currently allows the import of Canadian cattle younger than 30 months. BSE has only rarely been found to affect younger animals. But with USDA now proposing that the higher-risk, older-than-30-month cattle be allowed into the United States, Bullard and R-CALF members are taking a stand. “USDA is jumping the gun and not considering the ramifications of that decision,” Bullard says. “USDA has proposed to allow importation of all Canadian cattle born after March 1, 1999, which it estimated will bring over 600,000 head of older Canadian cattle a year into the U.S.” The USDA proposal What bothers him and U.S. beef producers is that this appears to be inviting the same troubles Canada has been battling for 14 years. Further, while Canada's problems stemmed from just a single imported animal, USDA's proposal seems to suggest that 19 imported BSE animals are acceptable. The proposal states: “Our quantitative model predicts the importation of a total of approximately 19 infected bovines over (a period of 20 years) under the provisions of this proposed rule. . . . The model further predicts that, if 19 infected bovines were imported over a 20-year period, approximately two U.S. animals would consequently be infected during that period due to such importations.” It goes on to state that, of these 21 infected animals, “only a small fraction would live long enough to develop clinical signs and be likely to contain significant levels of infectivity, due to the lengthy incubation period for BSE and the fact that most U.S. cattle are slaughtered before reaching the age when infectivity is manifested in clinical signs.” The average age for cattle slaughter in the U.S. is 18 months, excepting cull cows and bulls. This is true of Canada, as well. R-CALF contends that if this age-of-slaughter statistic is enough to mitigate the risk, then why are Canadian BSE cattle still turning up? All 12 BSE-infected animals in Canada were older than 50 months when detected, and the number of BSE detections in Canada has increased in the last two years. R-CALF contends that allowing cattle older than 30 months over the border still creates risk to the animal feed system and, therefore, to the good will of foreign markets, something Bullard says is a wrong move. “This is unacceptable,” Bullard says, pointing out that R-CALF registered a detailed rebuttal during the proposal's open comment period, which ended March 12. “We provided comprehensive comments with over 80 pages of comments and thousands of pages of supporting documentation, including scientific reports. The science strongly shows that the USDA proposal will most likely introduce BSE into U.S. herds,” he says. Is it legal? Bullard believes USDA is violating the law by continuing to move ahead with its proposal. “We believe (the USDA proposal) is a direct violation of the Animal Health Protection Act, which requires the USDA to prevent the introduction of foreign animal diseases like BSE,” he says. “Because the agency acknowledges that this rule creates the likelihood of importing up to 19 infected animals over the next 20 years, we think that's evidence showing this is a direct violation of this act,” Bullard says. “We asked the agency to withdraw it entirely.” But it did not. Instead, it forwarded the final draft rule on Aug. 2 to the Office of Management and Budget, which participates in all economics-related legislation. “It could take OMB up to 90 days to review the final rule, and then it responds to the USDA with recommendations,” he says. If the proposal were to continue forward, it would go before Congress, which would have 60 days to consider it. If approved by Congress in its current form, Canadian older than 30 months soon would be on their way to the U.S. R-CALF has been lobbying members of Congress, making sure they understand the implications of the USDA proposal, should it pass. “We actually think our chances are pretty good,” Bullard says. “We believe Congress fully understands the need to step up and prevent the USDA from implementing this irresponsible rule.”
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