THE partial lifting on the beef ban into the United States is a help to Canadian cattle producers.
But the trade problems caused by the discovery of a single cow with bovine spongiform encephalopathy remain. Cattle producers and others will continue to lose millions, if not billions, of dollars unless the underlying trade problems are solved.
A potential solution was raised recently in federal cabinet minister Ralph Goodale’s letter to the Saskatchewan media. His “triple S” solution of dealing with diseased cattle is for producers to kill those animals, bury them and say nothing. Goodale called it “shoot, shovel, and shut up.”
Read Also
Crop insurance’s ability to help producers has its limitations
Farmers enrolled in crop insurance can do just as well financially when they have a horrible crop or no crop at all, compared to when they have a below average crop
That might be a reasonable solution given the current context.
It’s the context in which politics replace science, excuses replace reason, closing borders on pretext rather than reality.
If not the best we can do, it may be the “least worst” possibility.
We know this is not the minister’s plan, but an expression of his worst fear.
“Triple S” would cause as many problems as it solved.
There would be local problems: fears that someone will put an infected cow into a community pasture; that an infected animal will show up in a sale pen or local abattoir, that it will be hauled by an unsuspecting trucker.
There would be international problems. The major one would be turning our regulatory system into an unreliable process instead of perhaps the best in world.
An alternative would be to test every animal slaughtered – 70,000 head of cattle per week. That is described as a draconian measure by one scientist to whom I spoke.
Yet it would have some benefits. People would know they’re getting safe meat. By setting such a high standard, we could demand the same of those who export to us. In such a case, the U.S. would be the main loser because it could not hope to keep up with testing requirements.
But even that poses problems. One would be high testing costs, which could be $10 miilion to $20 million for more buildings, equipment and staff.
And while this would be a possible reason for us to close our border, an idea that terrifies the Americans, it could bring other long-term problems.
Perhaps a modest move in that direction would be helpful. We could increase random testing to perhaps one percent per week. Such a suggestion has a lot of the benefits of the above but would still cost money, and consumers may well pay that price.
But it’s more likely those costs would be shoved back on the farmer. That would simply place another burden on the already over-burdened cattle producer.
Goodale’s “triple S” is not a great idea and he didn’t suggest that it was. But it may ultimately become producers’ response to unfair trading practices.
Some of the most desperate may be doing it already.
A better response would be to increase testing and prove to everyone that Canada has responsible producers, an effective testing system, and a commitment to a moral economy.
Rob Brown is a United Church minister now engaged in graduate studies on ethics. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Western Producer.
