I spent much of late June traveling through Alberta. As always, it was interesting to try to gauge the level of optimism in the beef industry, especially as I had attended a beef producer meeting in Quebec City earlier in June.

Out west, I heard Ted Haney of the Canadian Beef Export Federation give a very interesting presentation on timelines for the normalization of beef trade with the US and other countries.

There is always a great deal of uncertainty in trying to figure out which direction international negotiations will proceed. A few points that came up included:

• It is estimated that only about 10 percent of this year’s calf crop has been enrolled for age verification. Age verification has a huge impact on Canada’s ability to export to Japan.

The scarcity of age-verified calves means that Canada can’t really take advantage of the opportunity Japan created in the banning of US producers to export there. Cow-calf producers are the only ones who can solve this problem.

• The lack of export opportunities created by Canada’s BSE status means that those who do import Canadian beef can be much harder negotiators because they realize that Canada only has so many potential clients.

• The US rule governing export of over-thirty-month and breeding cattle isn’t expected before the fall. After the rule is published there will be a comment period, then it will likely be several months before the USDA responds to the comments. This was the same pattern as occurred with the rule regarding the export of feeders and fat cattle. This whole process will likely take at least until late 2007.

• Canada’s BSE status was a lively topic of discussion because other nations do not necessarily see Canada and the US as having the same BSE status. This controversy will likely be further complicated by the recent announcement that neither of the US "home-grown" cases of BSE are likely due to exposure to the BSE prion through feed.

• Even though Canadians might see Canada as having the same BSE status as the US, other nations may not see it that way. If we want to export beef widely again, these nations will need convincing about our BSE status, not just the US situation.

Many in Canada believe that we should harmonize our BSE control measures, such as handling of specified risk materials, with the US. If we do that, there may be large practical consequences for us if our trading partners see Canada as having a higher BSE risk than the states.

If we are seen to have a higher BSE risk than the US but do no more than they to limit any risk of BSE, we may not be seen to have met international standards sufficiently to normalize trade in beef.