The words “good news” and “BSE” haven’t been keeping close company over the past three years, but last week they formed a nodding reacquaintance.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization announced that cases of BSE worldwide are declining, and have been dropping at a rate of about 50 percent per year over the past three years.
In 2005, 474 animals died of BSE around the world, compared with 878 in 2004 and 1,646 in 2003, the FAO reported. That compares to a peak of “several tens of thousands in 1992.” Those figures give some perspective to the four cases discovered in Canada and the three cases found in the United States.
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As for the related human element, there were five deaths worldwide in 2005 from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the brain illness thought to be caused by eating BSE-infected meat. All five were in the United Kingdom.
As FAO animal production expert Andrew Speedy said in a March 23 News release
news, the figures show BSE control measures are working. They involve feed regulations, surveillance, diagnosis and traceability.
Speedy noted the importance of a tracking system that allows animals to be identified “all the way from birth to the shopping basket.” The Canadian beef industry is well down that road, with its mandatory national identification system, and the destination draws ever closer as more cattle producers age-verify their animals. By 2007, the Canadian Beef Export Federation figures almost all Canadian cattle will be age verified, and that could pay off handily when it comes to trade opportunities.
Certainly Canada is ahead of the U.S. in that respect, because in contrast, our southern neighbour isn’t expected to have full national animal identification until 2009.
Last week, U.S. agriculture secretary Mike Johanns called traceability a critical trade issue, noting countries that have it are using it to gain an advantage.
Count Canada among that latter group. And as reported in last week’s issue, Canada’s reputation is high in Japan, where this country’s beef safety and traceability are getting positive play. The challenge now lies in producing enough age-verified beef to capitalize on Japanese demand.
Once again in contrast, the U.S. is having difficulty meeting Japan’s beef trade requirements and seems to be at political odds with its major beef export market.
The Canadian beef industry has come through a deep valley of shadow, but it survived and adapted, and now it is poised to flourish. The words “good news” and “BSE” are shaking hands.
Who would have thought?
