An evening rain was falling so gently Sunday that you could smell the dust settle near Hanna, Alta.
Diesel plumes, quickly erased by the shower, marked the fields where farmers hurried to get seeds in the ground. Cows, many with calves at side, grazed knee-deep in grass.
Knee-deep in grass. Now there’s a phrase we haven’t been able to associate with the Hanna region in several years.
In any other week, one would rejoice in this weather, these moisture conditions, the spring optimism that was blossoming mere days ago.
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But it’s not any other week. It’s 10 days since a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was confirmed in one Alberta cow. And that cow, a bovine Pandora, has wreaked havoc on an industry that is part of the lifeblood of this country.
The spectre of animal disease has always loomed large in cattle industry consciousness, the more so since Europe has provided examples of the devastation it can bring. This spectre is the reason behind the national cattle identification project and various disease and safety measures implemented by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Yet no system is foolproof, as last week’s news attests and as politicians have hastened to point out. In addition to that fact, the human element is always a wild card.
For example, human error brought foot-and-mouth disease to Canada half a century ago, although it was quickly obliterated. Human ignorance about the impact and infectious nature of FMD could do so again, if we’re not vigilant.
The cause of the current BSE case is not yet known, but human error is a possible culprit. Somebody may have cut corners on feed or innocently and even legally, depending on time frame, fed a ruminant-based protein product to a cow.
Of course, it’s the connection between human illness and BSE that concerns beef eaters and thus the entire industry. So far consumers are showing healthy signs of keeping the risk in perspective.
Passing through that evening rain earlier this week, this traveller had a one in three million chance of being struck by lightning. In contrast, I had a one in 270 million chance of contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human equivalent of BSE, from eating a hamburger for lunch or prime rib the night before.
The statistics don’t scare me away from rainstorms and they don’t shake my confidence in the Canadian beef industry.
