A new salvo in R-CALF’s ongoing war of words against Canadian cattle imports is probably harmless but should be taken seriously, says the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.
The CCA believes most U.S. producers are more concerned about national animal identification, the influence of animal rights activists in Washington and carbon taxes than they are about a protectionist cattle organization’s calls for tighter border restrictions.
However, the CCA plans to watch how the American government responds to R-CALF’s latest demands.
The U.S. group’s request that the U.S. Department of Agriculture stop cattle older than 30 months from entering the country follows the most recent discovery of BSE in Canada in May.
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A USDA rule released last year allows in cattle born after 1999, but R-CALF argues Canadian imports put the American herd at risk because 10 infected cattle in Canada have been born after that cut-off date.
“These 10 infected animals could have been imported into the U.S. prior to exhibiting symptoms of BSE,” R-CALF said in a statement.
In July 2008, U.S. district judge Lawrence J. Piersol ordered USDA to reopen the minimum risk rule and revise any provisions of the rule it deems necessary after reviewing public comments.
The USDA opened a comment period on the risk of importing older animals and beef from cattle older than 30 months. It closed in November.
Nothing has happened since, said the CCA’s John Masswohl.
“In this latest submission from R-CALF, they’ve said that the court has given USDA the flexibility if they want to change rule making on live cattle, then they can do that,” he said.
“Our hope is that if they are going to expand the rule making, they would give adequate notice of that and invite public comments.”
Besides a ban on Canadian cattle older than 30 months, R-CALF also wants the United States to abandon the national animal identification and premise registration program and implement legislation to ban packer ownership of cattle.
There have been concerns in Canada since U.S. president Barrack Obama’s administration took office in January that an activist group could influence the new decision makers.
U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack suggested shortly after being appointed that meat processors should voluntarily expand country-of-origin labelling beyond what the law requires.
“This is just a manifestation of what we have been concerned about,” Masswohl said.
R-CALF said it is trying to protect the livelihood of American agricultural families and argued that too many Canadian cattle flowing into the country would lower cow prices.
However, Masswohl questioned the validity of these concerns.
He said R-CALF predicted similar price declines when older Canadian cattle were allowed back into the U.S. under new restrictions in 2007.
“That certainly hasn’t happened.”
