Foot and Mouth Disease - Uruguay

[farmers_son]

Uruguay is Canada’s number one import source for non NAFTA beef for the past two years and ranked ahead of Australia in 2003. Producers may not be aware that Uruguay has had two outbreaks of Food and Mouth disease, in October of 2000 and May 2001. As of May 2005 the OIE still did not recognize Uruguay as foot and mouth free even with vaccination. It is not expected that Uruguay will be considered free of foot and mouth with vaccination until at least 2006. However Brazil has blamed its recent outbreak of food and mouth in December 2005 on illegal imports of live cattle from Uruguay through a shared border.

Urugruay was forced to vaccinate its entire national herd for foot and mouth after the initial outbreak in 2000 was not successfully contained. It normally takes at least 4 years after a country is proven to have vaccinated its herd before it will be considered foot and mouth free. The cattle herd in Uruguay is predominately high quality Hereford cattle.

The economy of Uruguay was in crisis as recently as 2003 after a run on its banks in 2002. This caused Uruguay to borrow heavily from international financial institutions which resulted in a debt swap. In 2004 the U.S. became Uruguay’s number one export market for all goods, mostly made up of beef. Uruguay has traditionally favored substantial state involvement in the economy, and privatization is still widely opposed. In 2004, Uruguay and the U.S. signed a Bilateral Investment Treaty. Uruguay was regarded as a state sponsor of terrorism as recently as October 2004.


http://www.oie.int/eng/info/en_fmd.htm
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/trade/eicb/agric/beef-en.asp
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2091.htm

[cowman]

Always refreshing to see the blatant hypocracy of our political leaders? The Scott Reids lecturing parents while they booze it up on the taxpayers tab? Or for that matter the Paul Martins talking about how much he loves Canada while cheating the Canadian government out of tax money? Or talking about integrity and clean government...when he is leader of a party that would put the Mafia and Hells Angels to shame?
Total hypocrites that deserve to be sent packing Jan.23!
I truly hope Stronach gets the boot in a big way? She may be the biggest hypocrite of the whole works?

[cowman]

I find it strange that Brazil might try to blame anyone for a foot and mouth outbreak? From what I understand the disease is rampant there and has been for a long time?
I remember attending a beef seminar where one of the speakers was talking about the soon to be F&M free status of Argentina...around late nineties?
Anyway he had been in Brazil and they were travelling to Argentina. They came to the border and there were no guards around...but they did see them about 100 yards away having a barbeque! So they walked over and had a chat and a coffee with the border guards. He said while they chatted half a dozen cattle liners rolled across the border, never even slowing down! So much for animal health rules? His opinion was Argentina would not be F&M free for very long...if they ever were! Shortly after that there was an outbreak in Argentina...again!
The fact is these banana republics don't have a real food safety program? It is all wink-wink and ship the trash to the dumb North Americans! It is unfortunate that the USDA and the Canadian Inspection Agency seem to be losing their autonomy to keep this garbage out? Unfortunately politics seems to be the order of the day and the food safety agencies are losing their integrity as unbiased protectors of our food spply? pretty sad.

[wd40]

We ought to realize it's all more about balance of trade than anything else.

[cowman]

I often wonder about this balance of trade? Over the years we have seen a big influx of beef from Australia and New Zealand? What do they buy from us? For that matter what does Uraguay buy from us? Who knows...maybe airplanes from Bombardier or something?
How often is "trade", in reality, for the benifit of some eastern Canadian industry?
Back in the seventies when we were being flooded with cheap subsidized Irish beef what was the tradeoff? It actually turned out that it was blueberries from Quebec! The Canadian cattle industry was sold out so some Quebec blueberry company could get a sweetheart deal in Europe...hmmm...I wonder if they were a Liberal supporter?
I find it very strange that New Zealand and Australia can compete with our very cheap cow beef? I doubt our cows bring enough money to pay the freight from Australia? Are they giving away cows for free in Australia? Or maybe they get a free ride on the Martin steamship lines....courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer? LOL

[cowman]

The entire daycare issue is a fiasco in itself.
In rural areas of this country, finding insitutionalized daycare isn't as easy as it is in urban centres, so I support the Conservative proposal to provide the money to parents and let them decide how to spend it. If it means that a few more moms stay at home with the little ones during their preschool years vs hauling them off to day care or a babysitter every morning bright and early then it will be money well spent.

[farmers_son]

Regarding how Australia can compete with our cheap cow beef. The wholesale price of hamburger in Canada is not much changed from before BSE. Only the price of live cows. We should never confuse the price of our live cattle, cows or calves, with what beef is really worth.

I think it is fair to say that Uruguay is exporting beef to the U.S. and Canada when other countries with foot and mouth are not. Rather than tit for tat trade I think you need to consider that the U.S. views having a democratic government in Uruguay as important to the overall growth of free enterprise and democracy in Latin America. Uruguay was a bastion of democracy in Latin America until failing beef exports and a declining standard of living led to the formation of a violent Marxist organization called the National Liberation Army or Tupamaros which basically robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. This caused the democratic government ceding authority to the military in 1973 which ruthlessly suppressed the left wing opposition but stayed in control of Uruguay until 1984 when a democratic government was restored in 1985. However the fortunes of democracy and free enterprise in Uruguay rise and fall with the economy which suffered greatly as a result of the foot and mouth outbreak in 2000 and 2001. These worsening economic conditions played a part in turning public opinion against free market economic policies which would have seen the privatization of Uruguay’s oil industry. Inflation in Uruguay has been above 50% since the 1960s.

Uruguay is about the size of the State of Washington, population 3 million, cattle herd comparable in size to Canada.

From a Canadian producer standpoint we need to recognize that the fortunes of our producers rise and fall with our ability to export not only beef but live cattle. Canada is rather unique in that we are very export dependent but import beef and live cattle as well. In hindsight importing live cattle from Britain was an error which allegedly caused our BSE crisis. If Canada continues to import volumes of beef from South American countries, and I do not see that stopping, then it is just a matter of when not if we get foot and mouth disease.

Although beef trade with Uruguay would stop if a new foot and mouth outbreak was announced, given the importance of beef trade to the political and economic well being of Uruguay and given how we already know how countries like the U.S. will lie about the incidence of BSE then it would be naive to believe that there would not be tremendous pressure to cover up an outbreak of foot and mouth in Uruguay if it happened again.

[blackjack]

...would have to agree on that ship idea...could be wrong but i think i read m and m meats were tied to martin's company... that company imports lots of beef right here into good ole prime beef country of alberta...

[cowman]

I wonder if it is fair for our leaders to get us into trade deals with countries that are basically basket cases? How do you have fair trade with any country that doesn't have the same rules you have to operate under?
We can even see this in our situation with the USA? Their producers have a greater advantage in many areas? But then we have certain advantages that they don't have...so maybe it all evens out?
However take Brazil as an example? They basically have no environmental laws...they say the factories dump raw toxic sewage right into the rivers! How does a factory in Windsor or wherever compete with that?
How does our worker compete with slave labor in China? Does he need to become a slave also?
In North America we have a wealthy consumer market. Why would we want to give away our wealth to some country that cannot afford to buy our products? Who makes money when we bring in products from the third world? Obviously the third world, but how about the Canadian worker, the Canadian farmer, the Canadian small business owner...do they really benifit?
Maybe it is time for our government to start looking out for the interests of the PEOPLE of this country...instead of their multi national corporation buddies?

[farmers_son]

The issue with me was not trade, I believe trade is good. We have to start acting like we are a beef exporting nation not a beef importing nation. Are our memories so short that we have forgotten what BSE did to us? We got BSE because we were importing live cattle and beef products from Britain. With the benefit of hindsight we all would have to say that was not very smart. Yet here we are importing beef from a country that is not foot and mouth free. That is nothing less than playing Russian Roulette with our beef exports and the future of our cattle producers. Australia would never allow imports of beef from Uruguay into their country. Maybe that is part of the reason why they are the world’s number one beef exporter and our export markets are lost.

[grassfarmer]

Whaaaat F_S?? There is still not a shred of evidence to prove the Canadian BSE cases had anything to do with importing live cattle from Britain. What about the North African countries that imported thousands of tonnes of meat and bone meal from the Britain to feed their cattle through the 1980s before the BSE risk was known - they never had a case of BSE.
Importing beef from a foot and mouth infected country equally presents no real risk to our cattle population - even if you took your cows to M M meatshops to dine. There might be a theoretical risk if you feed restaurant waste containing beef scraps unprocessed to hogs but how many people do that in Canada? As long as we don't import live cattle from a F M zone.

[cowman]

I'm not real sure how foot and mouth is transferred but when Canada had a outbreak in 1952 they said it came in from a piece of sausage in the pocket of a German farm worker? That is what it states in Sherm Ewings book "The Ranch" and was a direct quote from Dr. Frank Mulhern, USDA?
I thought only cooked meat could come in from countries that have F & M? Like the canned stuff from Brazil? Is this not the case anymore?
This Dr. Mulhern seems to imply that the F&M virus can survive outside a host in the ground and infect cattle or pigs without contact from a host animal? Is this not correct?

[cowman]

Researched this a little further on the OIE site and they state FMD can be spread through the ground with equipment and also airborne up to 60 km!
Definitely can be spread through meat and infected humans, birds, rats, insects etc.!
Temperature kills the virus as does a certain level of PH. The virus can survive outside a living host for about a month.
Don't think we want to be messing around with this one?