Mad Cow Disease Reported in Alberta

[ALICIA]

Lets just hope the one cow is the only one.

[cakadu]

To me it seems like we just have to sit and hold our collective breaths to wait and see if anything else surfaces. I'm reasonably confident that it is an isolated case and we will be able to move on.

What it will do is help us to see whether or not the cattle I.D. system will prove to be very efficient and effective at locating all the animals.

The second thing that this will do is help to give us some information on how to handle a glitch in the marketplace i.e. being in a somewhat "oversupply" situation at the moment.

I've often wondered about the move to increasing beef production by 20% without a corresponding (or even some)increase in available markets for this extra production to go to. Add to that the Country of Origin Labelling that will be coming in the not too distant future as well as the knowledge that at some point our South American neighbors will eventually be able to export - Brazil has some 160 million cattle - and it makes me wonder how we are going to fare in the long run.

Here's hoping the border doesn't stay closed too long and that there is only this one case we have to deal with.

Let's not forget the other ruminant producers in the country i.e. sheep and goat producers, who are also involved in the ban to the U.S. at the moment.

We're all waiting for a green light!

[get]

with all this folks, I just wish the Big Guy would cut loose with a couple inches of moisture in our part of the world (North West Sk.) to allow us to do what we do best - make the best damn red meat in the world!

[rusty1]

cakadu - unfortunately our cattle ID system is not even being used in this situation. Nor would it even help as the syatem now stands. No one is required to read a CCIA tag except the retail outlet to record who bought which #'s. Then no one else read that # until the animal is slaughtered and the number retired. All the number carries with it is the herd of orign. So as we can see by the way the locked down farms are scattered across the country, that animal could travel through many hands in it's life time without anyone tracing who's hands it has traveled through. So until we implement a system where the tag is read by brand inspectors and at every loading or unloading chute we won't have a real trace back system. Nobody but nobody is going to do that with bar code tags. The only system that does work is Radio Frequency ID, eartags. And with a cost of around $2.00 maybe $3.00 per tag in hind sight thats a nobrainer.I'll also add that the system need to also carrie the calves number and the Dam ID, and a GPS co-ordinate to be complete.

[rip]

While I agree with Rusty that the CCIA system would have been a much greater help if it would have been implemented earlier and all of these animals could have been on it their entire lives, it has been a huge resource in this case in tracking down the progeny of the index herd and without it we would have seen probably twice as many herds quaranteened. Hopefully this will show the producer how important this system is and the need for it and allow the CCIA to increase its mandate on what and how the tags can be used. The technology and the system is in place to return information to the original herd of origin and to allow much better management practices. I am currently using the new electronic tag from CCIA @ $2.00/ head and will not go back to the regular tags again. The true value of the system has and is going to be in how the world sees our system... without it our borders would not have a chance of opening for months.

We are sitting in a very good position in the eyes of the world

[rsomer]

Actually, based on a customer viewpoint, Canada doesn't have the best damn meat in the world. Australia is the number one beef exporter in the world so it would seem that more global beef customers (e.g. Japan) view Australian beef as superior to Canadian beef.

Yes we will come out the other end but the other end will never be the same. This is not the same as the foot and mouth outbreak in the fifties where after a period of some years we started to get paid fairly for the cattle, even though the markets reopened after a few weeks. This time the Canada beef brand, I don't mean a hot iron brand, rather the "Alberta Beef" or "Canada Beef" brand perception of our product as safe and wholesome is damaged.

For instance, I was offered some elk sausage at a trade fair last fall. I tried it and it was very tasty, but no soon than I had swallowed I remembered that elk had been found with CWD. If I had remembered sooner I would have spit it out.

It will be a long time before our customers domestically and internationally forget that Canada had a mad cow. I am reminded of the Tylenol scare some years back where someone was removing the contents of theTylenol capsules and refilling the capsule with a powder, I believe cyanide. It took a huge marketing effort for Tylenol to resurrect its brand as safe. They basically redesigned their product, replacing capsules with caplets and putting safety seals on each bottle of pills. The entire over the counter pill industry was forever changed as customers insisted on safey seals on everything.

It will remain to be seen if the Canadian beef industry has equivalent marketing skills and expertise that can salvage the perception of Canadian beef as safe to eat. Rebuilding a brand image after it has been damaged globally is going to be very challenging. Honestly, I am not sure our industry has the people that can do it.

[ivbinconned]

Rip – I don’t understand how you can say that the Identification system is working in this situation when the cow in the index herd was not even tagged. Therefore the trail they are following is through the brand inspector’s paper trail. And I happen know that the brand inspectors from the different provinces don’t like to talk to one another. Even if the cow was tagged here is the problem. Lets say you - “rip” - had 100 calves all tagged with the current CCIA Bar Code tag or the RFID tag as you would like to use - and I applaud you for that forwards thinking. But lets say that you take your calves to a auction mart tomorrow. They could conceivably be split 100 ways. Maybe 20 go to a “gathering station” where one of our lustrous buyers assembles calves to package for one of his short sighted buyers. They are loaded on a truck with 80 other calves gathered from 5 other auction marts and shipped half way across the country to a backgrounder. He takes one look at these calves and 5 of them. (may it never be) don’t make the grade and he rejects them 1 of which is yours. So the original auction mart ring side “stockman” says well sort them out and take them to your local auction mart and I’ll take what I get and you reduce the size of check to me by x dollars.

Fortunately a backgrounder there buys your calf again with 1500 others from 35 other ranchers and farmers and goes home with him and puts him on a 1 ½ lb gain for the winter. Next spring he loads them all up and of to the auction he goes. I think your getting the picture. I think I count 8 people having possession here and 7 manifests filled out and we don’t even have the calf killed yet. Not once along this trail did the calf’s Bar Code tag get read, like who’s going to do that. We can’t even get a 100% read at the grocery store with a jug of milk.

Let me remind you that manifests are a joke as far as source verification is concerned. All they say is that this many calves went from this guys place to that guys place on this date and by this shipper. So you see the reason this is taking so long is because all they have to go on is the paper trail, what a maze.

So you see this kind of fiasco won’t be fixed until we read that RFID chip read at each place the calf stopped complete with a GPS coordinate and time stamp.



I’d like to know where all the red necked independent thinking producers are at now who fought the CCIA tagging process the last few years.



I believe and have always purported that the federal govt. needs to supply the RFID tags to producers. I’m not one for Govt. support nor meddling in the beef business – however the impact of the beef business in Canada is far to huge to say that only the producers need to pay. I have been very upset with Quebec’s non compliance with the CCIA system and have openly criticized that we subsidized the cost of their tagging system to their producers. However that being said they are using a RFID and VID tag combination and as I understand are reading the tags at many points along the trail of the calf. Obviously they had more foresight than the rest of Canada.



Rsomer – I concur with you – we have seen so much greedy turf protecting in the process of our ID development that I too would have been concerned 2 weeks ago, but today I think things are going to change very rapidly.

[ALICIA]

I read that the cow could of had at least 5 calfs so far,depending on the age of the cow and 211 plus herdmates, of each calf born along the way. They are talking about trying to locate where each calf is or was and what happened to it, and the rest.
Sars seem to be a bigger problem, and people are still flying around the world.

[rusty1]

Good point Alicia, and they havn't quarantined Toronto eh

[carebear300]

I too am holding my breath just hoping this episode gets straightened out in one heck of a hurry. With the amount of quarantined herds that must have been the most well travelled cow in North America or the worst fence crawler. What would happen if the infected animal had been in a big backgrounding lot and then a major feed lot? Would all those cattle have to be destroyed? Don't get me wrong destroying the cattle is the only way to get out of this crisis, but don't know where it starts or where it stops. I agree with the vet that was on the radio today, how could the feed be the problem if we never had mad cow disease in canada before? Dam all I have his questions, if I only had the real solution I would gladly share it with you all. Too bad cowman wasn't around to give his input.