Sheep markets | Monitoring costly and might not benefit Canadian producers, says official
It might be ancient, it might be endemic, it might be harmless, but eradicating scrapie is becoming a major issue for the Canadian sheep industry.
The United States may be four years away from being able to claim victory in its fight against the prion disease, and that could create a two-tier situation in North America.
“When that happens, they are going to become incredibly risk-averse and it’s going to get harder to trade with them,” said Canadian Sheep Producers Federation executive director Jennifer McTavish during the Manitoba Sheep Association annual meeting.
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Scrapie has been noted in sheep flocks around the world for centuries. It has not been connected to illness in human beings and has been considered just a part of sheep biology.
However, the BSE outbreak and its triggering of a human form of the disease prompted many people to advocate attempting to rid the sheep population of scrapie so that there is no chance of it having similar effects as BSE.
A number of countries are trying to eradicate scrapie, including the U.S. Success would give it both an edge over Canada with live sheep exporting and an excuse to block Canadian imports.
Canada’s sheep industry has begun forming a plan to eradicate scrapie and has been surveying the rate of incidence of the disease in Canada.
Neil Versavel, a director of the Canadian Sheep Breeders Association, recognized the pressure that U.S. efforts will put on the Canadian industry, but wondered if it was worth the cost and effort to mimic it.
“Basically, scrapie is a disease of trade,” said Versavel.
“When you’re a country like ours that can only manage to supply 40 percent of its own domestic market, you’ve got to wonder why spend all the money.”
Versavel said Canadian sheep producers are already trying to eliminate scrapie by culling animals that don’t appear to have scrapie-resistant genetics.
However, internationally recognized scrapie-free status does not include genotyping, so if the Canadian industry wants to get international eradication recognition, it will have to follow a campaign similar to the one in the U.S.
Versavel said one of the problems with trying to eradicate scrapie, which he believes is probably not possible anyway because it can arise spontaneously, is that it might all but eliminate some small breeds of sheep that are already sparse in Canada.
McTavish said the U.S. has told the Canadian government that it will continue to trade sheep with Canada as long as Canada commits to eradicating scrapie.
Versavel said there is much action on establishing a scrapie eradication program, so farmers who want to have input should do it now.
They should also get ready for the eradication program to be implemented.
“I imagine there will be a lot more testing and a lot more emphasis will be placed on record-keeping and that sort of thing.”
