Kevin and Karen Boon had a different vision one year ago of how their ranch would look. They planned to increase their commercial cattle herd to about 120 head and be well on the road to a new Speckle Park breeding program.
But May 20, 2003, the day Canada announced its first homegrown case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, almost everyone in the livestock business had to adopt a new plan.
“I’ve been forced to put things on hold, or move them at a different pace, or totally abandon them. It’s set me back a year to two years,” said Boon, of Tomahawk, Alta.
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“We needed some more income,”
The couple opened Spurz Kountry Kitchen last October to generate money and to use meat from their farm.
“Since we’ve opened it up, we’ve moved an astounding amount of beef, as far as I’m concerned, in a little 40 seat restaurant,” said Boon.
He estimated the restaurant uses 1,000 pounds of beef a month, most of it from their own farm.
“We feel it’s a good opportunity, whether there’s BSE or not. It just so happened the BSE situation prompted us to do it.”
The BSE crisis began when northern Alberta farmer Marwyn Peaster hauled a sick cow to the local abattoir. The cow was condemned and its head sent for testing. The results shocked the world.
In a country that in 1997 had outlawed feeding ruminant animal protein supplement to other ruminant animals to prevent BSE, the first case of homegrown BSE appeared.
“It’s mind boggling,” said Ben Thorlakson, chair of the Canada Beef Export Federation, during the news conference to announce the discovery. “We just don’t have the obvious risk factors.”
But the Black Angus cow, born on a Saskatchewan farm six months before the feed ban, had most likely eaten feed containing a protein supplement made from an infected animal before it reached the Wanham, Alta., farm.
Peaster declined to be interviewed for this story, but in an interview last August, he said consumers must be aware of Canada’s strong food safety system.
“We want the consumer out there to understand the food we have is safe and not all sick animals are taken out to the back 40. That’s why the system is in place, so those kind of animals get caught,” he said.
After the BSE discovery, the United States, Canada’s largest trading partner, and 34 other countries banned Canadian livestock.
At the time, Canadian cattle producers expected that Canada’s tough inspection rules would quickly reopen the borders to cattle trade. Boon doesn’t know if Canadians were in denial or simply na•ve to believe other country’s officials would reopen the borders to Canadian cattle in a matter of weeks or months.
“Because we had those things in place, I felt the rest of the world would see we had caught the animal. It proved the system was working,” said Boon.
At times in the past year, the border reopening looked near. Feedlot pens were refilled and American investors gambled by investing in inexpensive Canadian cattle. But it proved a mirage.
“No matter how much science we used, we could not use the science to overcome the politics,” said Boon.
