RED DEER — Government compensation to ranchers who lost cattle in a bovine tuberculosis outbreak could reach $36 million.
The investigation continues on the thousands of cattle caught up in the TB net, and final testing may not be done for another month, said Rick James-Davies of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Producers are eligible to receive a maximum of $4,500 for a commercial cow, although most were paid less based on fair market value.
“I am well aware that in a good commercial cow-calf herd, that comes nowhere the price that it costs to get a cow to that stage and have her productive in herd,” James-Davies said at the Western Stock Growers Association’s annual meeting, which was held Feb. 15 in Red Deer.
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federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
Questions regarding income tax for those who have received compensation are still unanswered. The affected ranchers will not be able to completely restock in the first year and they may not be able to defer that income.
Six cattle from a single herd tested positive, and animals from 18 farms were tested and eventually destroyed.
“Today we have not seen any signs of further spread of the disease to any of those other farms,” he said.
All animals on the original farm have been tested.
The next stage of the investigation starts in the fall on herds that had animals enter the index farm. That could be as many as 150 farms in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The risk of disease is considered very low, but another positive case would restart the cycle of investigation and testing.
The trace-out herds do not have to disinfect or be retested once they are ruled clear. The original farm will be disinfected and retested for two years.
The CFIA plans to complete the entire investigation by March 2018, and a final report should be out in September 2018.
This strain of bovine TB was first found in Mexico in 1997 and later showed up in the U.S. Midwest. It is a new strain for Canada and has not been seen in Manitoba or British Columbia, where there have been outbreaks in the last 10 years.
The stock growers association passed a resolution to encourage the CFIA to conduct a full search and figure out how the disease ended up in Canada.
That investigation needs to look at other possible species that could have carried the disease into Canada, said Larry Delvar, a Calgary area rancher and retired CFIA veterinarian.
“It is in the industry’s best interest to make a connection between the two.”
