Projects Unveil Customer Perceptions to Boost Canada's Beef Success.

[cowman]

I won't go into this a lot but will point out I said "test them all" from the first minute?
I didn't know what the prevalence of BSE was but I did know what the perception would be? Test them all...no argument! Piss around and every Tom , Dick and Harry would mealy mouth the product? you can look it up...?
Now I'm not so sure? The extensive testing done in Canada, says this is a very miniscule problem? Unfortunately those "unenlightened producers" called R-CALF have continued to follow an agenda that has nothing to do with science but sensationalism and following their dillusional protectionism! So I still say test them all....if that will get us some meaningfull change in our export markets?
This cow thing is getting to be an utter joke! Come on...$300 for a cow that is going into the restaurant trade! What a complete utter crock of BS! This is beyond bizarre!

[grassfarmer]

farmers_son, you say "Myself, I think BSE testing was a reasonable response to the situation in the UK but the incidence of BSE in North America is so much less."
To my knowledge they have never tested for BSE as a means to market beef in the UK. They were shut out of foreign export markets for 10 years on OTM beef and cattle and a bit less on UTM animals.

[Willowcreek]

grassfarmer--quote "To my knowledge they have never tested for BSE as a means to market beef in the UK."

I believe you are wrong on this grassfarmer...Cattle slaughtered in the UK over 30 months old are tested and marketed...The UK does not allow cattle born prior to 8/1/96 to be marketed for food at all...

There is a big stink going on there now because one of these prior 96 cows got into the food chain- even tho she had tested negative....

[Willowcreek]

Heres a link to one article on it....

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/content.asp?contentid=102050

[grassfarmer]

I stand corrected. Since December 2005 they have been testing and marketing OTM cattle in the UK. The BSE cases began appearing in the mid 1980's though and from then through until 1996 hundreds of thousands of OTMs were slaughtered and went into the human food chain. Cattle showing symptoms were culled and tested to confirm BSE. They never killed whole herds out if there was a case of BSE in that herd. They did however have a cohort program after 1996 that went back and traced cattle that had eaten the same feed as BSE cases and culled them out. I don't know why because at that time all OTMs were being incinerated anyway. The point I was trying to make was that testing and marketing cattle as free of BSE was not a significant policy throughout the BSE crisis in the UK. Farmers were just expected to take a beating on cull cows for close to 20 years.