Farmers may feel battered by the BSE situation, but they could be a lot worse off.
Analysts say they should hug the urban consumer. Instead of panicking and avoiding beef, North Americans kept eating it after May 20.
“I was surprised and relieved and glad,” said Kevin Grier, a meat market analyst at the George Morris Centre in Guelph, Ont. “If they had reacted the way the Europeans did (during the BSE outbreak there), it would have turned a disaster into a catastrophe.”
Analysts were united in saying they would never have expected North America to keep eating large amounts of beef after BSE cases were found in United States and Canada.
Read Also
Poilievre promises EV action and calls for canola compensation
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre promises EV action and calls for canola compensation
“I thought we would see more of an aversion to beef consumption than occurred. That was a total surprise to me,” said Ron Plain of the University of Missouri.
Betty Green, president of the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association, said cattle producers know urban consumers saved their bacon.
“Without consumer confidence, the whole system would have collapsed,” said Green.
Canadians actually ate more beef in 2003 than they did the year before. According to preliminary figures from Agriculture Canada, Canadians consumed 30.4 kilograms of beef per capita in 2003, an increase of 1.3 percent over 2002.
The trend to eat more beef has continued, as carcass-basis consumption figures are up by 6.5 percent for the first three months of 2004 compared to the same period last year.
