It is pervasive. Wherever you go in the agricultural world, the subject comes up.
It’s BSE, which we persist in spelling out in its full and awful embodiment – bovine spongiform encephalopathy. How well we’ve unfortunately come to know it.
On a plane to Calgary last week, ranchers in nearby seats talk about cattle prices. Head shaking and worried looks give way to talk about upcoming football games.
In Calgary, passengers on their way to baggage claims see the big poster at the entry to the arrivals lounge: We Love Canadian Beef. That used to be a given; common knowledge, as it were. Since May 20, we advertise it.
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In the high-ceilinged boardroom of McLean & Partners in downtown Calgary, sunbeams play on the polished wood of the table as actor and singer Tom Jackson talks about Beef Relief. It’s his charitable plan to support producers by buying beef while also providing donations to western Canadian food banks. (See details on page 76.)
At the sophisticated and agriculturally themed offices of AdFarm, an agency dedicated to advertising and public relations for agricultural businesses, we talk about BSE and its far-reaching effects on farms and ranches, on businesses and on our lives.
And in a low-lit room at the Calgary Stockyards in the city’s southeast, those watching the satellite sale organized through The Electronic Auction Market comment with contempt on a proposed cull cattle program being considered by the federal government.
It is inadequate, they say, in less flattering terms than that, as we watch cattle trading over the internet at prices affected by market and trade uncertainty.
And they speak with worry about United States senators’ objections to reopening the border for live cattle in 2004. Politics, it seems, are at least as pervasive as BSE.
At an evening reception for agricultural business associates, country music winds around the group as a small line forms to get a slice of roast beef, fragrant and freshly carved. And conversation turns to BSE.
Don Hepburn of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency talks about his co-workers’ efforts to trace animals, to inform the public, to verify the science.
Neil Wagstaff, president of Wild Rose Agricultural Producers, recalls his feelings of devastation at the early briefing on BSE, provided to industry leaders just before the news went public.
Did any of us know then what this disaster would cost, and how it would pervade almost every aspect of the Canadian agricultural industry? We’re learning.
