Mexico is anxious to resume trade in live animals with Canada, says a ministry of agriculture official.
Javier Trujillo, undersecretary for food safety and quality, said there are ongoing discussions to resume live trade.
“Today, I can tell you safely that the technical protocol is complete and is moving slowly forward,” he told about 400 people attending an international livestock congress in Calgary on July 16.
The Americans have indicated they could endorse the Mexican protocol now working through its legal system. However, no time frame was offered.
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Last October, Mexico started accepting Canadian boneless beef and some offal products from cattle younger than 30 months. Mexico imports about 30 percent of its domestic meat supply. When the BSE cases were discovered, the impacts were multi-pronged. To fill in the protein gap, poultry, pork and beef from other countries like New Zealand, Australia and some Central American nations were imported.
“There was not a major impact on domestic consumption,” he said.
In fact, last week the Mexicans shipped $25 million worth of high value beef to Japan.
Mexico is still affected by the BSE crisis because it is unable to import breeding stock from its neighbours. About half the purebred animals used in the country came from Canada and the United States. A particular loss has been a ban on imported dairy heifers. There are Mexican owned Holstein cattle waiting in Ontario with no sense of when they could be moved.
In addition, Mexico used to sell breeding stock to Bolivia but those purchases have halted. Bolivia says as a member of the North American beef industry, Mexico is a risk because of its integrated business dealings with Canada and the U.S.
Trujillo said the situation needs to be put in perspective and the three countries must work together to change international attitudes on BSE, where many countries’ immediate response was a total ban.
