BSE ... New Regs fall short

[almoy]

The hold up is money. Isn't it always. Noone is willing to pay for the cost of testing every animal. Also a lot of our cattle sales to the US were live cattle and they haven't got a test for BSE in live cattle.

[TOM4CWB]

almoy;

Our red meat sector is paying many times over, the cost of the testing.

We MUST create the infrastructure to get on with testing... like the Swiss have already dons:


http://www.prionics.ch/prionics-e.htm

The Prionics diagnostics laboratory provides prion diagnostic services in Switzerland for the meat industry and authorities.

The experienced laboratory team is customer oriented and works with short turnaround times. Our employees in the diagnostic services department register incoming deliveries in a tracking system developed by Prionics AG that prevents mix-up of samples during the test procedures. After registration the brain samples are checked using tests from the Prionics®-Check series. In only a few hours the results are available and are immediately communicated to the butcher by telephone.

If a BSE case is detected the samples are sent to the Swiss reference laboratory, which conducts a second test and gives final confirmation of BSE. If the test result from the Prionics diagnostics laboratory is negative then the butcher can process his meat as usual.


© Copyright by Prionics AG, Switzerland

Obviously skilled people and specialised facilities are needed, to do BSE tests here in large #'s in AB.

What is the industry going to do, wait for the feds to fix our problems? Not very likely from past performance... what would you say?

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie;

I see this on DTN;

"THE VIEW FROM PRO FARMER

It will be especially difficult for the US to move forward and restart cattle and beef trade with Canada until the issue of exporting beef to Japan has been worked out, analyst Chip Flory from Pro Farmer told DTN On Air Listeners.

"Japan has gotten into the middle of this and we have tied hands," he said. "Until that Japan issue is worked out, the border will remain closed."
Japan wants reassurances from the US that any beef exported to Japan was never in Canada. "StarLink Corn is still burned freshly into Japanese trade officials' minds," Flory said. In addition, Japan flubbed the handling of their own bovine spongiform encephalopathy incident "big time," Flory said. Now Japanese officials have to work twice as hard to convince their citizens they won't let in any foreign BSE beef.
Currently, Japan is testing each and every animal for BSE, regardless of age, Flory said. The US and Canada only test carcasses of a certain age. But Flory says the US may have to start testing every carcass if we want to continue exporting beef to Japan. "All of a sudden we will add some slaughter costs that are going to be rather significant as we move down the line," he said."

What is this about? What does he mean?

"Japan flubbed the handling of their own bovine spongiform encephalopathy incident "big time," Flory said."

[ValueChainFX]

We are going to need to go to testing, at the moment they test every horse that is killed and we are going to need to go that route soon anyway.

Kinda makes me chuckle Japan is asking us to test everyone, why not ask the US to do the same, as if they are immune!

We are planning to set a plant up to handle these things, but it sure will not do the numbers that Cargill and IBP do and not even compete with those boys.

Even though we will have the ability to ship to these other countries we still believe that some of the Canadian markets need to be looked after first. Giving the producer the ability to put product into some of these markets we have let others take is something we as an industry need to look at. With that we believe the producer will have more control over their income.

[pandiana]

Who would be expected to pay for testing. I heard that the cost per animal was in the order of $200.00. Cow calf producers might net $100.00 on a good year. Feedlots might net $15.00 on a good year. Packers claim they net less. Would the consumer pay to test for a disease entity that has a probability of being in our food supply of less than one in a million?

[ValueChainFX]

pandiana at the moment the EU is testing every animal in their system. I don't believe the cost is $200.00 each but I have some enquires into the cost per head. I will pass my findings on when I get the word back.

Either way, I believe the industry as a whole is paying the price. Every person that has been touched because of the boarder shut down should be thinking what he or she could do to make the system stronger. What they can do to take more control of their industry.

We still have some people that are going to find everything that is wrong with what others are trying to do. If their energy were spent looking for solutions we would all be better off.