Beef crisis proves prairie spirit alive - WP editorial

A midst the worst disaster ever to hit the Canadian livestock industry, it would be easy to assume that many people have been left feeling frustrated and powerless over how to cope with the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis.

Governments wrangle over conditions to pry open foreign borders to Canadian beef, and there is, as yet, little relief in sight. Ministers hold high level meetings with foreign diplomats and just when negotiations adopt more optimistic tones, Japan steps in and sideswipes the process. It tells the U.S. to beware of allowing in Canadian beef, lest the Japanese are forced to also ban American beef out of fears Canadian product will be mixed in.

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Optimism wanes.

The ban 34 countries have placed on Canadian beef holds and the cattle industry in this country continues to lose $11 million per day.

Yes, a sense of powerlessness in this environment would be understandable.

Yet as the crisis drags on, everyday citizens are proving they can make a difference.

Four teens from Mortlach, Sask., took to the streets to protest in front of fast food restaurants that do not use 100 percent Canadian beef.

XL Foods, a Calgary-based packer with a plant in Moose Jaw, Sask., donates 40,000 pounds of ground beef and bison to food banks. The Saskatchewan government matched the donation.

Burger King, A & W, Dairy Queen and McDonald’s vow to use only Canadian beef. Free barbecues and rallies staged by volunteer groups, municipalities and private companies spring up across the West, drawing in consumers and raising awareness about the safety of Canadian beef, despite the clamour surrounding the discovery of one case of BSE in an Alberta cow May 20.

John Ryan, a producer in Bragg Creek, Alta., who normally sells animals to a Calgary automobile dealer who then donates them to a foodbank, said he’s moved near to tears when the dealer tells him that the deal is not only on for another year, but promises to pay Ryan last year’s prices for the 10 animals, before the effects of the BSE scare drove beef and cattle prices into the tank.

Retailers across the West cut beef prices to encourage consumers to help reduce the glut of beef that has built up in storage since the beef ban. And there are signs consumers are doing their part as beef sales are holding.

As well, throughout it all, support for 4-H beef programs has remained steadfast. There have been several reports of 4-H beef sales attracting pre-BSE crisis prices. For example, in Estevan July 18 the sale average price for 63 steers was $3.23 per pound. The weekly average price for live steers that week was 34-42 cents per lb. in Alberta and 35 cents per lb. in Saskatchewan.

The public response has offered a rare bright spot in what is undeniably the darkest hour ever to hit the cattle industry. In the response, we see that prairie spirit, which holds dear to the philosophy of neighbour helping neighbour, is alive and well.

-Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.