U.S. and Cdn. beef industry thread

I guess we're just nice guys. Maybe too nice?

Do you feel the U.S. is now playing the "protectionism card", instead of any real health concerns about Canadian beef?

Canada won't ban U.S. beef
But U.S. border closed to Canadian cattle

Associated Press
Originally published June 26, 2005

TORONTO - Canada, which was prohibited from exporting its cattle to the United States two years ago after a mad cow scare, has no intention of closing its borders to U.S. beef after Washington announced that a cow had tested positive, Canada's agriculture minister said.

The comments from Canadian Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell came as Taiwan re-imposed the ban on U.S. beef that it lifted just two months ago. Also, a Japanese government food safety panel expressed concern yesterday about the second confirmed American case, raising speculation that Tokyo may delay a planned resumption of U.S. beef imports.

The U.S. ban on Canadian cattle has cost Canada's ranching industry $5.6 billion and strained ties between the two countries. Canadian officials have regularly called for an end to the ban, and they said the U.S. announcement of its first homegrown case of mad cow confirmed their belief that keeping the border closed to Canadian cattle no longer served its stated purpose.

"There is really no excuse to delay opening up the border. It has to be open," Prime Minister Paul Martin said from Alberta, a province hit hard by the ban.

The U.S. ban on Canadian cattle was imposed in May 2003 when an Albertan-born cow was found ill with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. Concerns persisted after a Canadian-born cow in Washington state was found in December 2003 to have the disease. Humans who eat BSE-contaminated tissue can contract a degenerative, fatal brain disorder.

The border was scheduled to reopen in March, but a federal judge in Billings, Mont., ordered it kept closed at the request of ranchers suing to block Canadian cattle imports. Two hearings in the case are scheduled for next month.

Canadian ranchers have called it protectionism, saying that the U.S. ban is no longer about mad cow disease.

"Cattle beef is safe in both countries, and consumers should have confidence in the beef and cattle supply," Mitchell told the Associated Press.

A pound of steer dropped from 88 cents in May 2003 to 22 cents after the ban. Eighty percent of Canada's beef exports went to the United States, according to Stan Eby, president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, which represents 90,000 cattle producers.

The United States has for years sent much of its beef in the other direction as well. In 1999-2003, Canada was the fourth-largest importer of U.S. beef behind Japan, Mexico and South Korea, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Japan - the United States' largest overseas market until it banned American beef imports 17 months ago - has been under intense U.S. pressure to resume imports, with some officials threatening sanctions. Japan had imported about $1.5 billion of U.S. beef annually.

However, Friday's confirmation of the American case raises the need to examine the accuracy of U.S. testing and the extent of the illness there, said Kiyotoshi Kaneko of Japan's Food Safety Commission.

"There is a big difference between a suspected case and a confirmation," Kaneko said in an interview aired by public broadcaster NHK.

Source[/color]

Cows Confined in Texas Where Disease Found

By BETSY BLANEY, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 12 minutes ago

Cattle will not be allowed to leave the Texas ranch that produced the nation's first homegrown case of mad cow disease, and government officials will work to find animals related to the sick cow, authorities said Thursday.

None of those "animals of interest" have yet been identified. If found, the cattle will be killed and tested, Texas animal health officials said.

The 12-year-old beef cow was born, raised and used for breeding at the same ranch and had never left the property, authorities said. They would not identify the ranch or the size of the herd.

Agriculture officials announced Wednesday that the latest confirmed case of mad cow disease in the United States had been traced to the animal, which was a "downer" that could not walk. The cow was slaughtered last November at a pet-food plant in Waco, Texas, and never entered the nation's human food supply.

It was the first time the disease has been confirmed in a U.S.-born cow. The other U.S. case was in a dairy cow imported from Canada.

The state Animal Health Commission put a hold on the ranch's cattle earlier this month when tests indicated a mad cow case among the herd.

Officials have said the infection most likely started with contaminated feed eaten before August 1997, when the United States and Canada began banning cow parts in cattle feed. The cow was born about four years before the feed ban was implemented.

Officials also are trying to identify herd mates born within one year of the infected cow's birth, as well as any offspring born within the past two years and other related cattle.

USDA Chief Veterinarian John Clifford said it is "highly unusual" to find the disease in more than one animal in a herd or in an affected animal's offspring.

The animal arrived dead in November at Champion Pet Food. An initial screening indicated the presence of mad cow, but more sophisticated follow-up tests were negative, and samples were sent to a British lab, which found that the animal had the disease. The carcass was later incinerated.

Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration will trace the feed history of animals born on the ranch around the same time as the infected cow, including any animals no longer on the farm.

Investigators will also examine compliance records for plants that may have processed meat and bone meal from relatives or herd mates of the sick animal to see whether the companies complied with the feed ban regulations.

The Agriculture Department began monitoring cattle more aggressively after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was discovered in December 2003 in Washington state. More than 400,000 cattle have been tested since June 2004.

Texas is the leading cattle state in the nation with 13.8 million head or 15 percent of the U.S. cattle inventory.

Mad cow disease, medically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, is a brain-wasting illness that infects cattle. It is believed to be spread when a cow eats meal that contains spinal or brain tissue of an animal infected with BSE. Humans can get a related illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, if they eat infected tissue.

Source[/color]

Reyn: I will confess that I've not yet read your Mad Cow posts as I currently have four of the finest steaks ever to walk on four hooves in my refrigerator. After July 4, when they are properly "disposed of," I shall return and peruse this thread ... assuming my brain is not totally spongified by then. :wink:

Oh, I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. Enjoy!

I've been eating Canadian beef for years and look at me:

Ha!!!!

Beef scare tests US on cow-feed policies
The federal government insists that American beef is safe, but doubts linger among importing nations.

By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

ASHLAND, ORE. - The new case of mad cow disease in the United States points to the US Department of Agriculture's two basic and - critics say - potentially conflicting mandates.

The agency is charged with ensuring the safety of US agricultural products. But it's also meant to promote those products domestically and abroad. Bad news in the first area can harm the second.

Seeking to lessen any concern beef-eaters may have about the recently discovered cow infected with the disease, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns speaks of "interlocking safeguards" and "the firewalls we have in place." He points to the vastly increased number of cows that now are screened for the deadly infection - more than 388,000 in the past 18 months. Before the first US case of mad cow disease was discovered in December 2003, just a few thousand cows were tested annually.

But the388,000 are still less than 2 percent of the approximately 35 million cattle slaughtered in the US each year, far lower than the percentage tested in Europe or Japan. And the most recent episode also shows how that system of checking - even with its improvements - is not foolproof.

Mad cow is known scientifically as "bovine spongiform encephalopathy" (BSE). It's a brain-wasting disease believed to be carried by animal feed made from cattle brains or spinal cord. Such feed is now banned in the US and other countries, but that hasn't stopped BSE from appearing around the world.

The first test on the suspected cow showed positive signs of BSE. A second, more detailed test showed no signs of the disease. But the department's inspector general ordered a third round of more rigorous testing at a lab in England, and that confirmed that the animal indeed had been infected with mad cow disease.

For producers and USDA officials, just one case out of 388,000 indicates the relative safety of the system.

The bottom line, says Terry Stokes, CEO of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, is that "the animal did not enter the human food or animal feed supply."

Most beef-eating Americans apparently have not changed their habits as a result of the mad cow episodes. But the industry, the largest segment of US agriculture, knows that its foreign market remains a large problem.

"US beef is safe," says Mr. Stokes, "and we urge USDA to do everything within its power to send that message to our trading partners."

That has been an uphill battle. Over the weekend, Taiwan reimposed a ban on imports of American beef. Japan, which had been the largest importer of US beef, has yet to lift the ban it imposed after the 2003 discovery.

In the wake of the first US case of mad cow, the USDA imposed new rules. "Downer" cattle - those injured or too sick to stand - may not be used for human food, and slaughterhouses may not use techniques that can mix brain or spinal-cord tissue with muscle meat.

Consumer groups say the government must take additional steps, including more testing, tighter controls, and the closer tracking of beef cows and their offspring as they're brought and sold.

The latest episode "underscores the need for federal regulations on BSE to be tightened immediately," says Wenonah Hauter, who heads Public Citizen's food program.

Ms. Hauter says federal agencies "must eliminate loopholes in the current feed ban which still allow the use of cattle blood, waste from the floors of poultry houses, and processed restaurant and food waste to be fed to cattle."

"The use of rendered cattle remains is allowed in feed for hogs and poultry, and in turn, hog and poultry remains can be put back into cattle feed," she says. "All of these loopholes provide pathways for cattle to eat potentially infective tissue from other cattle and create the potential for the disease to spread."

Although about 150 people in Europe died of the human form of the disease in the 1980s and 1990s, no such cases have been reported in the US.

To increase the level of safety, Agriculture Secretary Johanns has ordered his department to undertake two additional tests for BSE if the first test is inconclusive.

"I want to make sure we continue to give consumers every reason to be confident in the health of our cattle herd," says Johanns.

"The risk of contracting the human form of mad cow disease is minuscule," agrees Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

"But since the United States does not have a mandatory animal tracking system," she adds, "USDA strategy is basically to cross its fingers and hope that beef from a BSE-infected animal doesn't end up on Americans' dinner plates."

Source[/color]

Here's the latest news as to what's happening in the Canadian beef industry. 7 billion in export losses so far, according to this article. A staggering amount in only 2 years! I hope for American sake's, this doesn't happen to your own exports.

Agriculture ministers plan for contingencies in advance of BSE court hearings
at 17:25 on July 6, 2005, EST.
JAMES STEVENSON

KANANASKIS, Alta. (CP) - As a series of impending U.S. court dates casts Canadian beef exports once more into question, provincial and federal agriculture ministers gathered Wednesday to devise worst-case scenario plans.

"What we're looking for is consensus as to the thinking around what we would all do in the event of a negative reaction from the courts," Alberta Agriculture Minister Doug Horner said.

"You don't plan to fail; you fail to plan. So we want to make sure that we have the right things in place given whatever scenario might come up."

Federal Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell said the meetings, which are scheduled over the next three days, will be used to plan for the whole range of possibilities, including if a Montana judge extends the current ban on live cattle to include boxed cuts of Canadian beef.

"We understand the importance of being prepared for any contingency," Mitchell said before heading into meetings with his provincial counterparts.

"We're going to work very hard to make sure that we're prepared to deal with any eventuality, and we don't want to have surprises."

Canada's beef industry, which has already suffered more than $7 billion in export losses in two years since mad cow disease was first found on an Alberta farm, is deeply concerned about two U.S. court dates in the coming weeks.

On July 13, an appeals court in Seattle hears a U.S. federal government appeal of a lower court ruling in March that kept the border closed to live Canadian cattle.

Two weeks later on July 27, a separate hearing over possibly closing the border permanently to Canadian beef imports will be conducted in Montana by the same district court judge who issued the March decision.

Currently forbidden to ship live animals over the border, Canada's beef industry has been ramping up its domestic slaughter capacity and now ships more than 30,000 tonnes of meat to the U.S. each month, worth an estimated $135 million.

Canada's largest packers, including Tyson Foods and Cargill in southern Alberta, have both increased their slaughter capacity to deal with the growing demand for boxed-cuts of beef in the U.S.

But all this would change if the court hearings result in greater restrictions placed on Canadian beef or closing the border entirely. As such, the industry has been devising strategies to brace for further hardship.

The "worst case" includes a proposal to immediately concentrate slaughter capacity on cattle under 30 months, which would mean up to 18,000 older animals a week would be bound for rendering plants or outright disposal.

South of the border, America's largest meat-industry lobby stepped up its campaign this week to get the border reopened to live Canadian cattle.

The American Meat Institute says 8,000 U.S. meat-packing jobs have been lost since the discovery of the first diseased cow in May 2003. And it believes several packing plants could permanently shut down if the border if closed for good.

"The fact that the border is closed has obviously had a significant impact in Canada, but it's also had an economic impact in the United States," said Mitchell.

"That's why having a regularization of trade between Canada and the U.S. in beef and cattle is in the best interests of both countries."

Last week, it was confirmed that the Americans had their own homegrown case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy - the scientific name for mad cow disease - in a 12-year-old Texas cow.

But no one is clear on how that will impact the court cases, where the protectionist Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund will argue the Canada's three cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy mean northern herds are unsafe.

Source[/color]

U.S. government in Seattle court seeking to reopen border to Canadian cattle
at 14:12 on July 10, 2005, EST.
STEVE MERTL

VANCOUVER (CP) - The latest skirmish in the border war over mad cow disease is set for a Seattle courtroom on Wednesday as the U.S. government tries overturn an injunction barring imports of Canadian cattle.

But the Canadian beef industry, which estimates it has lost $7 billion since the border closed two years ago, is largely stuck on the sidelines while the U.S. Department of Agriculture fights a splinter group of American cattle producers.

In neat piece of legal judo, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Legal Action Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, succeeded last March in blocking the department's plan to reopen the border.

The group, known as R-CALF, persuaded a federal judge in its home base of Billings, Mont., to grant a temporary injunction against renewing imports of Canadian live cattle under 30 months of age.

R-CALF argued Agriculture had failed to show that Canadian cattle presented a minimal risk of spreading bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) through American herds after three cases of BSE had been discovered in Canadian animals since May 2003.

Now the department is asking a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit to overturn the temporary injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Cebull.

That ruling triggered a wave of anger among Canadian producers and governments that R-CALF had managed to scuttle a carefully orchestrated reopening of the border to younger cattle, deemed by experts to be virtually no risk of transmitting the brain-wasting disease.

Officials on both sides of the border argued vehemently that Canada's BSE screening procedures met U.S. requirements.

"We are very reassured and pretty firm in our understanding of the science," Ed Lloyd, press secretary to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, said from Washington, D.C.

"The rule that we've put forward is very measured and scientifically sound and we are going to proceed as best we can to see that that is in place."

U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, in Canada for financial trade talks, said Saturday in Calgary the government is confident it will overturn the temporary injunction and reopen the border.

But whatever the appeal court's decision, Cebull will is still scheduled to hear arguments on July 27 in Billings to make the injunction permanent.

"The case and the hearing on the merits of R-CALF's petition against the rule still have to be heard," Dennis Laycraft, executive director of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, said from Calgary.

The association, along with the Alberta Beef Producers' Association, their U.S. ally the National Meat Association and the Canadian government, lost a bid for intervenor status at the hearings but they are appealing.

The cattle ban rivals softwood lumber tariffs as a major trade irritant between Canada and the United States. But it's different in that the U.S. government and much of the American beef industry has sided with the Canadians.

R-CALF, founded about a decade ago, has feuded with American meat-packing giants who back the integration of the Canadian and U.S. beef industries.

"It's a group that's appealed to a certain element down there that are highly protectionist," said Laycraft.

R-CALF sued U.S. packers to force up prices and fought unsuccessfully to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Canadian beef.

"They've been promoting a whole range of policies to obstruct trade with Canada," said Laycraft.

The BSE-spurred ban on Canadian beef was a godsend to American producers, driving up domestic cattle prices as the free flow of Canadian animals to U.S. packing plants stopped.

The border has reopened to processed Canadian-packed products - know as boxed beef - but not to live animals.

No one from R-CALF was available to comment but the group contends in its legal submissions there's no evidence Canadian screening procedures and rules regarding contamination of cattle feed will eliminate the BSE risk.

It claims the number of Canadian cases found so far suggest there are still undiscovered BSE-infected animals in the Canadian herd. It has also proffered scientific experts who argue young cattle still present a risk.

R-CALF's argument may have been sideswiped by the recent discovery of BSE in an older Texas animal, says Darcy Davis, president of the Alberta beef producers.

"All R-CALF's arguments about different levels of risk all fall away with the finding of that cow," he says, noting Canada has not closed its border in reaction to the Texas case.

"The trade position of the U.S. government that they're provisionally free (of BSE), that falls away. Now we need to discuss how best to go back to trading all different kinds of cattle."

The impasse concerns the U.S. agriculture secretary, said spokesman Lloyd.

"It sends an inconsistent signal to our trading partners when we're asking Japan and other trading nations to open their markets to us, yet we're not opening our market to Canada for the same reason," he said.

Lloyd sees R-CALF's position as hypocritical and self-defeating.

"They're looking at perhaps there is a short-term economic gain by this," he said. "But you look at the industry and the restructuring, the continued capacity-building in Canada in slaughtering, once that restructuring occurs it's not going to be undone.

"I think somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 U.S. jobs have been lost in the packing industry because of this."

Laycraft said Canadian processing capacity, much of it U.S.-owned, will rise by 50 per cent once all current expansions are finished.

"What we're seeing is we've moved a lot of the processing back to Canada and we have a larger herd," he said.

While producers have seen the equity value of their operations decline and debt levels increase, Laycraft said there's been no major shakeout.

"Most people have found ways to cope in one way or another with this," he said.

Source[/color]

$8 billion mad cow disaster blamed on Canadian Food Inspection Agency

at 18:39 on July 12, 2005, EST.
DENNIS BUECKERT

OTTAWA (CP) - Canada's $8-billion mad cow disaster can be squarely attributed the failure of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to assess economic consequences of even a single infection, says a leading expert.

William Leiss of the University of Ottawa, who is also a past president of the Royal Society of Canada, said the CFIA assessed the risk of mad cow to animal health and human health, but not the risk of losing export markets. Yet Canada was party to an international agreement providing for a ban on exports from any country with even a single case of the disease. The policy was known as "one cow and you're out."

"What would be the economic impact of one or just a few cases of BSE (bovine spongiform encepalopathy) in the Canadian herd?" Leiss asked at a World Health Organization conference on risk management.

"We failed completely to manage or even to recognize this risk at our great cost."

He said Canada followed U.S. policies in adopting a minimal testing program. But Canada's risk profile is completely different from that of the United States.

At the time, Canada exported 75 per cent of beef production while the United States exported only 10 per cent. Losing export markets was not a serious problem for the Americans, he said.

"In food issues we are cursed with the political attitude that we've just got to be onside with the U.S. and nothing else matters."

He said the CFIA also followed the U.S. lead in making a half-hearted effort to stop recycling infected protein in ruminant food, which is widely believed to be the cause of mad cow disease.


Leiss said the CFIA ban on feeding proteins from ruminants to ruminants remains "full of holes."

Leiss said the United States conducted a full risk assessment in 1997-98, but Canada did not do one until six years later.

CFIA spokesman Marc Richard said the agency didn't include economic consequences in its assessment because that is not the agency's mandate.

"We don't usually address the economic stuff," said Richard in an interview. "The risk assessment was based strictly on the disease. Overall we're the administrators of the Animal Health Act.

"The CFIA's risk assessments have to do with animal disease. That is our mandate and in our mandate we specifically don't address economics."

But another CFIA official, senior veterinarian Darcy Undseth, said economic consequences of a mad cow infection in Canada were considered in a 2002 risk assessment even though they were not quantified.

He said the consequences were described in that assessment as "extreme."

Undseth said the CFIA's response was "very successful because of the proactive steps taken since 1990 and the very measured response taken in a North American context.

"BSE has not established and amplified in North America but was captured on its way to eradication."

Asked about the estimated $8 billion in economic losses to date, Undseth said animal diseases do have economic impact but the BSE response "has been a successful program."

Source[/color]

blame game

On Sunday I purchased a 6 pound sirloin tip roast - cut it up into steaks - really good eating (Costco Meat dept)

Agreed, but it would behoove the beef industry, inspectors, federal government, etc, to really get their act together on this one. After all, $8 billion is nothing to sneeze at. Lots of people are hurting here.

And then there's softwood lumber.....

behoove LOL

I guess I made a joke and I didn't even know it.!

It's a start. Let's hope the protectionists don't get this re-over-turned!

Cattlemen's Association thrilled by American court beef ruling
Jul, 14 2005 - 4:00 PM

KAMLOOPS/CKNW(AM980) - The Canadian Cattlemen's Association is applauding Thursday's U.S. Appeals Court decision that over turns the ban on imports of Canadian cattle.

President Stan Eby says he was caught somewhat off guard by the decision, suggesting it has been a long time since the industry has had a reason to celebrate.

He says they're pleased that science has prevailed.

Eby calls it a positive day for not only the Canadian beef industry, but the U.S. industry as well.

He says there's still paperwork to be done, and isn't sure yet when the border will reopen.

Source[/color]

As you can see from this article, American jobs and consumers have been hurting as well as a result of the border closure to Canadian cattle.

U.S. border closure seen bringing permanent split in North American beef market
at 22:24 on July 14, 2005, EST.
DENNIS BUECKERT

OTTAWA (CP) - One unexpected outcome of the U.S. ban on imports of Canadian cattle could be a permanent split in the once firmly integrated North American meat packing industry, industry officials say.

Meat processors have seen a major silver lining in the mad cow crisis in that cattle prices fell and demand for slaughter capacity soared. But the beef industry wants to see a return of the integrated market, industry spokesmen told a news briefing Thursday.

John Newman, chairman of the Beef Information Centre, said Canadian ranchers are anxious for the border to reopen. The return of U.S. buyers is expected to raise cattle prices.

"We've done what we had to do to expand slaughter capacity and process these animals," he said. "But we'd rather continue our strategic relationship with the U.S. industry, so that together, we can be a stronger North American beef industry."

Jim Laws, executive director of the Canadian Meat Council, said meat packers have added 1,500 jobs since the border was closed in May, 2003, following the discovery of a case of mad cow disease in Alberta.

Canadian packing plants are working overtime six days a week and aggressively expanding capacity, while new players are popping up across the country, Laws told the briefing.

Late Thursday, a U.S. federal appeals court overturned the ban on Canadian cattle, throwing out a lower court's ruling that imports could spread mad cow disease in the United States.

Washington responded by immediately reopening the border to Canadian cattle.

The import battle still faces one more legal hurdle, a hearing July 27 before District Court Judge Richard Cebull, who originally sided with the U.S. lobby group that wants to make the ban permanent.

Canada's red meat processing industry has annual sales of $11.4-billion, employs 34,000 people, and is the fourth-largest manufacturing sector after cars, petroleum and lumber.

That increased capacity won't go away when the U.S. border is reopened to live cattle from Canada, Laws said.

"The bricks and mortar investments that we've been making to process the cattle that we used to export to the U.S. are quite literally 'concrete.' They will not be dismantled if the border opens later this month.

"At the end of the day the Canadian beef industry will be stronger than it was before and better able to compete on the international stage."

Even if the border is reopened, the meat packers are confident that Canadian ranchers will make sure they stay in business, Laws said.

"This is a growing industry in Canada," he said. "We know Canadian farmers will not soon forget that border closed and that they need to keep supplying this extra capacity that was built in Canada."

In contrast, U.S. meat packing plants have been closing or operating far below capacity, said Patrick Boyle, president of the American Meat Institute.

He said 7,800 jobs are gone in the U.S. industry, although he blames that on a combination of factors, not just the lost access to Canadian cattle.

The price of ground beef in the United States has risen so sharply that low-income consumers are shifting to other types of protein such as pork and chicken, he said.

"The changes that are occurring in the U.S. beef industry will become permanent and so too will the corresponding changes that are occurring here in Canada," he said.

"Former partners in trade, in an integrated market, will now become fierce competitors in international markets going forward, unless we can restore trade to our two countries."

Boyle is visiting Canada as part of his industry's campaign to get the border re-opened.

Source[/color]

Cdn beef sector works to restore trade with U.S. in breeding and older cattle
at 13:55 on July 24, 2005, EST.
JOHN COTTER

EDMONTON (CP) - With young cattle finally moving across the U.S. border again, Canada's beef industry is quietly preparing for the next hoof to drop in the two-year-old trade dispute. Ranchers were relieved last week when a U.S. appeal court overturned an injunction against importing Canadian cattle under 30 months of age for slaughter in American meat plants.

If that appeal court ruling stands, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is expected to release a proposed rule before the end of the year for trade to resume in Canadian breeding stock and cattle over 30 months of age.

Everything hinges on how the U.S. courts deal with a proposal by the protectionist American group R-CALF for a permanent ban on Canadian beef, said Stan Eby, president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association.

"The USDA has done all the risk analysis for over-30-month beef and breeding stock. When the legal issues are cleared away, they will present a rule that will cover all other classes of livestock and beef products," Eby said from his farm in Kincardine, Ont.

"We are trying to get them to expedite this as quickly as possible so all sectors of the industry can resume trading with the U.S."

District court Judge Richard Cebull was to hear R-CALF's arguments for a permanent ban Wednesday in Billings, Mont. But the case has been delayed indefinitely pending a review of the written reasons for the appeal court's decision.

Some believe the case could be shelved permanently.

That's the hope of the Canadian Beef Breeds Council, whose members have been suffering from a ban on selling purebred breeding bulls and heifers to the United States since May 2003, when the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was discovered in Alberta.

Altogether, the ban has cost Canada's beef and dairy breeding industry more than $500 million in lost sales, said Herb McLane, vice-president of the council.

The ban has also hurt the industry's ability to improve the genetics of beef herds on both sides of the border.

The industry has been working with the federal government in its lobbying efforts with the USDA to reopen the border completely.

"We are lobbying for a speedy implementation of a second rule that would cover cattle over 30 months of age and breeding cattle," McLane said from his ranch in Hussar, Alta.

"We are pushing very hard to see that rule this year. We have some indication from the U.S. that that is their wish as well."

Canada's push for the second rule is based on the same premise that supported the current rule that has allowed the trade in young cattle to resume - risk factors for BSE in Canada are no different than in the U.S.

Agriculture Canada is pressing the U.S. to include all other aspects of the beef ban in a second rule, including the estimated 6.7 million beef and dairy cattle in Canadian herds that are over 30 months of age.

While Canada's slaughter plant capacity has increased over the past two years, reopening U.S. markets to all products including older beef and cattle is important, said Chris Leggett, deputy director of U.S.-Canada trade issues.

"We've been bringing this up in every meeting we have with the USDA," Leggett said in Ottawa.

"We've been assured that once the legal situation has cleared up we can expect them to deal with it expeditiously. Any information that USDA has requested with regard to the measures we have taken in Canada to manage BSE has been provided."

Producers in less well-known sectors of Canada's ruminant livestock industry such as bison, sheep and goats have been celebrating the reopening of the U.S. border to young animals. But they're also pushing for more.

This week the first live bison to cross the border in more than two years are expected to be shipped from the Prairie provinces to a slaughter facility in North Dakota.

Gil Hegel of the Bison Producers of Alberta said after two very lean years that's great, but said they will still have to deal with the continued ban on breeding stock and older animals.

"If we can get rid of all the politics over the border problem I think we will be well on the way to recovery," he said. "If we can keep politics out, we can make a buck at it."

Source[/color]