We're learning our lessons the hard way
Monday, 27 September 2004
Will Verboven
As the BSE crisis continues to deepen and push the beef industry closer to the edge, there has been a relentless parade of dreams and schemes to save the industry. Governments and cattle industry groups continue in their quest to try and address the problem by giving farmers incentives to hold their cattle back from market, and juggle creative new subsidies, all based on the desperate hope that the U.S. border will soon reopen to live cattle.
Regardless of all their efforts, unrest in the countryside continues to grow, which is being fanned by groups and individuals who are promoting their own solutions to the nightmare. It has all become part of the madness of this devastating issue.
Yet much of the turmoil might have been averted had government authorities and politicians in Canada and the U.S. learned something from the European response to their BSE outbreaks. Last month, your humble columnist had the opportunity to visit with scientists, beef marketers, private laboratory owners and R&D companies, in three European countries, who were all dealing with the BSE issue.
My conclusion? Our government agencies in North America learned almost nothing from the European BSE response experience, despite the fact that there were important lessons to be learned. I dare say that perhaps by design they were perversely oblivious to learning anything. Nothing else explains the North American governments' BSE response, which essentially presumed that our own outbreaks were "unique" and that they had to be handled "our way."
Europe is not North America and circumstances surrounding the outbreak would, of course, be somewhat different. But there are parallels, particularly with trade restrictions, political obstinacy about BSE testing, and recalcitrant bureaucrats unwilling to change positions for fear of losing control.
The point is that the Europeans have been there, done that. They went through the various stages of denial, blame and stubbornness until wiser heads prevailed and addressed the BSE issue effectively (except in the U.K., where the BSE nightmare is ongoing). As a result, either by accident or design, a momentum has developed to redefine BSE as nothing but another minor livestock disease--which, in reality, is all it is.
The major beef-producing countries of Europe initiated mandatory BSE testing of all cattle over 30 months old, and random testing for those under 30 months. They also allowed testing for marketing and trade purposes. That action took all the energy--and media sting--out of the issue. As a result, millions of BSE tests have been carried out.
Of course, additional cases were found, but that was okay with consumers as they were now assured that a program was in place to pull the affected cattle out of the food system. There were no more unknowns. Trade restrictions that had been erected between European countries were taken down.
All of this happened before the BSE outbreaks in Canada and the U.S. But whatever lessons could have been learned were missed, as politicians and bureaucrats in North America quickly began to repeat history by responding to the outbreak--by doing things "their way."
The Europeans I visited acknowledged that, unlike us, they don't have a giant trading partner/monster next door in charge of making up the rules for these sorts of things. But they did question whether the U.S. could have done anything worse to Canada than we already had done to ourselves, by not putting into place a BSE testing policy similar to Europe's. That way, at least markets in Japan would have reopened to fully BSE-tested beef by now, assuming the marketplace found it to be economically feasible.
Not unexpectedly, governments dismiss any BSE strategy besides their own as being too simplistic. They claim that critics just don't understand the nuances and economics of global trade. That may well be true, to a certain extent. But what is beginning to come into question is much of the fear-mongering that governments have engaged in regarding such matters as BSE testing costs and logistics, statistical validity, trade impact and consumer backlash. The Europeans have shown most of that was, and is, based on speculation. We would know that, if we bothered to pay attention.
Monday, 27 September 2004
Will Verboven
As the BSE crisis continues to deepen and push the beef industry closer to the edge, there has been a relentless parade of dreams and schemes to save the industry. Governments and cattle industry groups continue in their quest to try and address the problem by giving farmers incentives to hold their cattle back from market, and juggle creative new subsidies, all based on the desperate hope that the U.S. border will soon reopen to live cattle.
Regardless of all their efforts, unrest in the countryside continues to grow, which is being fanned by groups and individuals who are promoting their own solutions to the nightmare. It has all become part of the madness of this devastating issue.
Yet much of the turmoil might have been averted had government authorities and politicians in Canada and the U.S. learned something from the European response to their BSE outbreaks. Last month, your humble columnist had the opportunity to visit with scientists, beef marketers, private laboratory owners and R&D companies, in three European countries, who were all dealing with the BSE issue.
My conclusion? Our government agencies in North America learned almost nothing from the European BSE response experience, despite the fact that there were important lessons to be learned. I dare say that perhaps by design they were perversely oblivious to learning anything. Nothing else explains the North American governments' BSE response, which essentially presumed that our own outbreaks were "unique" and that they had to be handled "our way."
Europe is not North America and circumstances surrounding the outbreak would, of course, be somewhat different. But there are parallels, particularly with trade restrictions, political obstinacy about BSE testing, and recalcitrant bureaucrats unwilling to change positions for fear of losing control.
The point is that the Europeans have been there, done that. They went through the various stages of denial, blame and stubbornness until wiser heads prevailed and addressed the BSE issue effectively (except in the U.K., where the BSE nightmare is ongoing). As a result, either by accident or design, a momentum has developed to redefine BSE as nothing but another minor livestock disease--which, in reality, is all it is.
The major beef-producing countries of Europe initiated mandatory BSE testing of all cattle over 30 months old, and random testing for those under 30 months. They also allowed testing for marketing and trade purposes. That action took all the energy--and media sting--out of the issue. As a result, millions of BSE tests have been carried out.
Of course, additional cases were found, but that was okay with consumers as they were now assured that a program was in place to pull the affected cattle out of the food system. There were no more unknowns. Trade restrictions that had been erected between European countries were taken down.
All of this happened before the BSE outbreaks in Canada and the U.S. But whatever lessons could have been learned were missed, as politicians and bureaucrats in North America quickly began to repeat history by responding to the outbreak--by doing things "their way."
The Europeans I visited acknowledged that, unlike us, they don't have a giant trading partner/monster next door in charge of making up the rules for these sorts of things. But they did question whether the U.S. could have done anything worse to Canada than we already had done to ourselves, by not putting into place a BSE testing policy similar to Europe's. That way, at least markets in Japan would have reopened to fully BSE-tested beef by now, assuming the marketplace found it to be economically feasible.
Not unexpectedly, governments dismiss any BSE strategy besides their own as being too simplistic. They claim that critics just don't understand the nuances and economics of global trade. That may well be true, to a certain extent. But what is beginning to come into question is much of the fear-mongering that governments have engaged in regarding such matters as BSE testing costs and logistics, statistical validity, trade impact and consumer backlash. The Europeans have shown most of that was, and is, based on speculation. We would know that, if we bothered to pay attention.
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