BSE ... New Regs fall short

[cakadu]

The new regulations are a start and I am glad that they are looking more seriously at this matter. Personally, I don't think that any rendered animal parts should end up in feed that is destined for animals that will eventually end up in the human food chain - whether they be from ruminants or not, feeding non-ruminants or not. There are going to have to be other means of finding protein sources for these feedstuffs. With what we are going through right now, I just cannot see any justification for doing so. Can anybody provide some justification, other than it is a cheap source of protein?

Looking down the road, I see a time when dead animals will have to be disposed of through either incineration or putting them through one of those bio digesters and "treating" them, with the resulting materials being rendered essentially harmless.

I was fortunate to go and see one of these biodigesters at work this past week and they were saying that it is possible to put the dead animals through a masculator (sp?) and then into the digester and it's processes. The ony caution that the people promoting the digesters have is that there have not been any scientific studies showing that the prions can be destroyed and until such time as there are, then they cannot make any claims about the prions. If that is the case, their suggestion would be to have the resulting materials taken to Swan Hills and disposed of there.

It seems like these digesters will be the future, both in terms of dealing with rendered animals and with manure. By putting the manure through the digester, you can access several income paths that will add value to the farm, plus help to deal with the manure problem.

Treating manure - either through composting or this digester - is going to have to be done so that there will be less food safety problems and less harm to the environment i.e. our waterways.

[ValueChainFX]

cakadu who were you talking to about the digestors and where did you see one operational. We have been looking at this technology and would be interested in talking to anyone that has worked with them (and there are lots of people working on them LOL)

But you are right we need to work on ways of making the system better!

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie;

I see Goodale is quoted as saying on CBC:

"In an open letter Tuesday to all Saskatchewan news editors, the Saskatchewan MP and former agriculture minister said international bans on Canadian beef are not based on science.

Such a trend may encourage other countries not to test their cattle or report diseases for fear of the consequences.

"It's painfully obvious: You cannot count on science or fairness, so you better not test your cattle and you better not report any diseases, because the results will be devastating," he wrote.

The OIE (the international agency for animal health issues) should be worried that every other country will adopt the "Triple-S" approach to avoid animal health issues: "Shoot, Shovel, and Shut up!" said Goodale.

Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Clay Serby says he was "astonished" by the letter, and that it reflects the minister's frustration."


In the light of the above FAO recomendations, Goodale is not being helpful or furthering our case in opening our border with Japan.

We may end up being the ones who must "Shoot, Shovel, and Shutup" when a slaughter of 30-40% of our own CDN breeding herd is required to be destroyed.

What I do not understand is;

Do we not expect we will be required to meet the same rigerous standard Japan expects of themselves, if we are expecting Japan to open it's border to CDN Beef?

Isn't it hypocritical to not allow Japan to export to Canada, when Japanese standards are much higher in BSE survelience than CDN standards?

Are we not acting with dishonour and like a bunch of spoiled brats?

[charliep]

Look in the Beef chat area for a further discussion/Japanese view. They made reference to the following link.

http://www.ca.emb-japan.go.jp/BSEdoc.html

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie;

I see this on DTN Aug 1;

"U.S. food officials say they think Canadian beef is safe, and praise Canada's efforts to ensure that its BSE case was isolated. Still, the border remains closed, for reasons that Canadian officials claim are political, not scientific, says the newspaper.

That political obstacle appears to be Japan, which has threatened to ban beef imports from the U.S. if that USDA reopens the border to Canadian beef or cattle.

Japanese agriculture minister Yoshiyuki Kamei told his Canadian counterpart, Lyle Vanclief, this week that Japan won't end its ban until Canada's scrutiny of its herd matches the standards that Japan adopted two years ago, following its own BSE outbreak.

Such measures would involve BSE-testing every beef carcass destined for human consumption -- a costly exercise that Canadian officials say isn't warranted given that BSE seems to spread only from cattle older than those that Canada slaughters for meat exports."

Japan has a good point, why are we not listening?

Obviously we can resolve this BSE issue, IF we get on with the new reality we live in... what is the hold up?

[almoy]

The hold up is money. Isn't it always. Noone is willing to pay for the cost of testing every animal. Also a lot of our cattle sales to the US were live cattle and they haven't got a test for BSE in live cattle.

[TOM4CWB]

almoy;

Our red meat sector is paying many times over, the cost of the testing.

We MUST create the infrastructure to get on with testing... like the Swiss have already dons:


http://www.prionics.ch/prionics-e.htm

The Prionics diagnostics laboratory provides prion diagnostic services in Switzerland for the meat industry and authorities.

The experienced laboratory team is customer oriented and works with short turnaround times. Our employees in the diagnostic services department register incoming deliveries in a tracking system developed by Prionics AG that prevents mix-up of samples during the test procedures. After registration the brain samples are checked using tests from the Prionics®-Check series. In only a few hours the results are available and are immediately communicated to the butcher by telephone.

If a BSE case is detected the samples are sent to the Swiss reference laboratory, which conducts a second test and gives final confirmation of BSE. If the test result from the Prionics diagnostics laboratory is negative then the butcher can process his meat as usual.


© Copyright by Prionics AG, Switzerland

Obviously skilled people and specialised facilities are needed, to do BSE tests here in large #'s in AB.

What is the industry going to do, wait for the feds to fix our problems? Not very likely from past performance... what would you say?

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie;

I see this on DTN;

"THE VIEW FROM PRO FARMER

It will be especially difficult for the US to move forward and restart cattle and beef trade with Canada until the issue of exporting beef to Japan has been worked out, analyst Chip Flory from Pro Farmer told DTN On Air Listeners.

"Japan has gotten into the middle of this and we have tied hands," he said. "Until that Japan issue is worked out, the border will remain closed."
Japan wants reassurances from the US that any beef exported to Japan was never in Canada. "StarLink Corn is still burned freshly into Japanese trade officials' minds," Flory said. In addition, Japan flubbed the handling of their own bovine spongiform encephalopathy incident "big time," Flory said. Now Japanese officials have to work twice as hard to convince their citizens they won't let in any foreign BSE beef.
Currently, Japan is testing each and every animal for BSE, regardless of age, Flory said. The US and Canada only test carcasses of a certain age. But Flory says the US may have to start testing every carcass if we want to continue exporting beef to Japan. "All of a sudden we will add some slaughter costs that are going to be rather significant as we move down the line," he said."

What is this about? What does he mean?

"Japan flubbed the handling of their own bovine spongiform encephalopathy incident "big time," Flory said."

[ValueChainFX]

We are going to need to go to testing, at the moment they test every horse that is killed and we are going to need to go that route soon anyway.

Kinda makes me chuckle Japan is asking us to test everyone, why not ask the US to do the same, as if they are immune!

We are planning to set a plant up to handle these things, but it sure will not do the numbers that Cargill and IBP do and not even compete with those boys.

Even though we will have the ability to ship to these other countries we still believe that some of the Canadian markets need to be looked after first. Giving the producer the ability to put product into some of these markets we have let others take is something we as an industry need to look at. With that we believe the producer will have more control over their income.

[pandiana]

Who would be expected to pay for testing. I heard that the cost per animal was in the order of $200.00. Cow calf producers might net $100.00 on a good year. Feedlots might net $15.00 on a good year. Packers claim they net less. Would the consumer pay to test for a disease entity that has a probability of being in our food supply of less than one in a million?