WINNIPEG – Trade rules, politics, religion and shipping costs may preclude using thousands of pounds of Canadian beef for foreign aid, according to relief organizations.
Canada’s beef industry, still reeling after a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was discovered, had hoped to work with aid groups to send excess meat outside the country, particularly cuts from older cattle.
Farmers have said they may have to destroy and bury older animals because they are worthless – a plan that galls people who work with the hungry.
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“It almost seems immoral to dispose of food, especially after the producers have worked so hard to get it into a position to be used,” said James Alty, logistics manager for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.
However, people in many countries that receive Canadian aid don’t regularly eat beef for economic or religious reasons, and would be sensitive to opportunistic shipments, Alty said.
“What we would be doing is forcing people to make compromises on pretty significant issues in their life when they’re particularly vulnerable already, and that would appear to be in some eyes very much a western agenda,” Alty said.
High shipping costs for canned meat also make grain and vegetable oils more attractive as food aid shipments, Alty said.
Last year, the Canadian branch of the Mennonite Central Committee sent more than 39 tonnes of canned beef chunks to foreign countries including North Korea and Iraq, said Wilfred Unrau, who works with the group’s canning volunteers.
But it’s unclear which countries will accept the beef in the wake of Canada’s BSE incident, Unrau said.
Iraq will take the meat, but it would first have to travel through Jordan, which has banned Canadian beef.
The organization is also wary of dumping donated beef into foreign markets and depressing local prices. Finding federally inspected plants to slaughter the beef is another problem, Unrau said.
Meat for export must be inspected by a federal agent before it is shipped.
“They (federal inspectors) are just swamped. They’re booked,” he said, adding the group hasn’t given up trying yet.
The federal Canadian International Development Agency won’t likely include canned beef in its donations because it costs three to seven times more to buy and ship than vegetable protein, according to a CIDA spokesperson.
Officials from the beef industry say Canada cannot consume all the meat from culled cattle, such as cows that cannot produce calves and bulls that are unable to breed.
The meat was previously ground into hamburger and most of it sold in the United States.
The U.S. will begin to accept beef from young Canadian cattle next week, but export prospects for cattle over 30 months old are dim because most scientists say BSE only manifests itself in older cattle.
The industry estimates farmers will have about 525,000 cull cattle on their farms by the end of the year. Provincial governments are determining how to offer killing and burial services for the valueless livestock.
Canadian food banks want to work out a plan to take as much of the beef as possible, said David Northcott, who runs a food bank in Manitoba.
They hope to work with governments and charities to pay for cattle to be fed through the winter, if needed, rather than see the meat wasted.
“Our commitment is to make sure something gets done rather than just bury these animals,” Northcott said.
More than 700,000 people use Canadian food banks each month, he said. Governments, businesses and cattle producers have already donated thousands of pounds of meat to food banks since May.
