Hay

[topper]

Cowman: I'm sure your cattle are as healthy as ours. My point is that the east didn't draw a border around your area when the BSE outbreak occurred there but you seem to want to draw lines around other areas of the country when you feel it is to your advantage. I have never had fusarium in my crops either but I am getting labeled as a dirty straw producer. I see a lot of Alberta bulls selling into this area. Maybe I'm missing something here but it seems like a double standard.

[cowman]

Well I don't think the problem was feed from the eastern prairies...just infected feed? A simple pre shipment test would have solved the problem? Why didn't the Alberta government ask for that? And without a doubt the majority of eastern prairie feed coming into Alberta during the drought was clean.
Feedlot alley in southern Alberta has been bringing in fusarium infected grain from the eastern prairies and the USA for quite awhile now and FG is firmly established there now. Halting the spread of disease and other pests is the reason they brought in the Pest Control act...all over Canada? But if you ignore the law...well what does that say? So much for the law!
I think a lot of the areas where fusarium is established don't see it as a big problem. They have learned to live with it and to a certain extent control it? Maybe we are just behind the times out here? But the fact is if we could keep it out then it would cost us less and our product would have been worth more?
I think someone floated the idea that certain areas shouldn't be included in the BSE thing? It didn't float because the CFIA said no, real quick, and besides the USDA had its own agenda and wouldn't endorse that? But in reality maybe the proponents had a point? The fact is all BSE cases have been in Alberta, with maybe a Saskatchewan connection.
Oh and by the way, those B-trains hauling eastern fusarium infected feed into feedlot alley, return with clean grain for Manitobas hog barns! Hogs do not tolerate fusarium infection well!