Mad Cow Disease Reported in Alberta

[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.

[ALICIA]

on the 6pm new all cows in main herd are oks. But they are still talking about doing away with the more. Depending on the customer say.

[Muttley]

If this ends tomorrow I think we will see the Canadian cattle markets set back for awile!

Buyers will be hessitant till they see how the consumer reacts. We just might see ourselves feeding more cattle at home for a year till the market moves in the right direction. I myself do not want to sell calves at below the cost of production so I may well have to keep them.

LORD HELP US !!! if another animal shows up positve.

[cakadu]

Someone brought up the fact that we are branding Canada under the Ag Policy Framework that is still being sorted out. As far as I can see, this current situation we find ourselves in is a very good reason to be extremely careful when it comes to using this strategy.

Kind of reminds me of the parable about putting all of ones eggs into one basket.

Thank goodness that so far nothing else has come back testing positive. It is a shame that these animals have to be tested and my heart and prayers go out to those that are having to suffer the quarantine and the testing. I can't imagine what it is they must be going through.

Let's hope for all our sakes it is over soon. I don't think that Canadian consumer confidence has been too terribly shaken by this and I'm not sure other countries has been either. I'm hoping it is just a matter of they want to take whatever precautions they have to until we get a clean bill of health.

[smcgrath76]

Interesting to read the commments, particularly on the Canadian Beef brand. I recently returned from Australia where I had a chance to attend a conference on Global beef markets, and also to visit some real ground level producers and their national genetic service provider.
Interesting Rule of Thumb at the conference is that Brands (eg: Coca-Cola) will spend approximatly 5% of their gross retail sales on promotion. Using farm gate sales (not even retail) that would put our Canada Beef promotional budget at roughly $378 million dollars. The people we have working on beef promotion (eg. Beef Info Centre) do a stellar job, however maybe if we are serious about our brand we should be asking about the resources they have available.
Just a thought as we try to reopen and possibly rebuild our export markets.

[ValueChainFX]

This mad cow deal has allowed us all to see what happens and the need to be aware of the systems in place.

We all know there have been some things printed that are not right. We all know we could use a system that helped us as producers and as trace back.

The system we are working on for the industry is concieved to not only trace back a single animal but all the processes it has been through and done in a way that does not cost a fortune to maintain. If we are going to look after our system than we best do it right.

I also believe, that if this animal had been in a Federal plant we would have discovered this much faster.

Am I picking on the Alberta provincial system ... maybe ... but if you know anything at all about Federal plants and provincial plants you know there is no comparisons. Alberta probably would do well to upgrade their programs.

Anyway we all hang on and hope for the best.

[charliep]

Just a question as to how provincially inspected plants are handled differently than federal ones? What things should Alberta have done differently?

I can only ask what would have happened if this animal had died in the back 40 and no one would have known. This is not meant negatively to anyones decisions but only a comment about our new world. Consumer and food safety issues are driving to the forefront. We are living in interesting times.

[ALICIA]

The wolfs would of had a good meal and left the live calfs and cows alone

[cakadu]

Interesting point Charlie - sort of like the question about "if a tree falls in the forest - does anyone hear it?" If the cow had just died right there on the farm what would have been done differently? Would the rendering truck just have been called and she would have been picked up? I don't know.

In terms of the difference between federal and provincial plants - I don't think this is really an issue because the cow was condemned and deemed unfit for human consumption prior to slaughter, so whether it was in a federal or provincial plant is kind of a moot point. The fact that it was sent to the rendering plant made it a low priority for testing which could explain the delay in getting results.

The more pertinent question to ask is how many veterinary pathologists do we actually have and how much of a workload do they carry? Should Alberta Agriculture or whomever hires these people be looking to (a) increase the number of pathologists they have on staff?

[ValueChainFX]

The Federal system is much stronger than the Provincial system. As much as the fellows in the provincial system want to think they have a system that can be compaired to the Federal system they cann't.

A visit to almost any provincial plant in Alberta and you can visually see why!! Most of the Provincial plants have yet to put a HACCP plan together and for those that have, my discussions with some of them tell me they still don't understand what they are and how they work.

Never mind all that. CFIA does a great job and our Canadian reputation in world trade tells us that. Alberta could easily take the three provincial bodies that regulate our provincial system and make them one, this would be a good start.

What should we have done? My thoughts are that we have been regulated by the government for the inspection system. Testing on animals is not new. We have known we have a back log in the labs for a long time now so we could have looked at several options. Keep in mind these are just my thoughts and we have some good people that could also add to this in Canada.

1.) One department to run inspections.
2.) Continue to use the CCIA tags and upgrade the system.
3.) Establish a provision to set labs up in new or existing facilities as a first check to be varified. (they do horses with on site labs now)
4.) Test every downed animal within 48 hours of kill or death. (even on farm suspisious deaths. (It has been suggested farm deaths may be the most likely place to find our challenges)
5.) Put together a real disaster plan that does not wipe herds out and waste good product.

Each of the above are possible to do, the costs involved are not what the industry is faced with today! We have a reengineering process to go through and we should be going through it now!

This is just my suggestions and hope to see some possitive discussion from this. We can move forward in these situations if we have the will to do so.

[carebear300]

The official announcement today that the original angus herd in Saskatchewan had to be depopulated was bungled badly once again. It is a disgrace that the producer had to find it out on the radio. Wouldn't you think that he deserved a phone call or a visit to inform of the decision. The person in charge of this might be (we surely hope he is) smart at book learning, but his people skills are brutal!!!!!! They wonder why in Ottawa that westerners feel alienated, just one more example of why. It seems the whole federal bureaucracy has picked up on the arrogant and aloof attitude of the federal agriculture minister.