Should we blanket test for BSE or not?

By Patrick Meagher, Editor

The Texan cattle farmer, who swears he was the one who killed the one cow infected with BSE in the United States last year, is adamant that Canada can regain its lost beef markets with blanket mad cow testing.

"If your government would realize this and stop wasting billions and allow private testing, the flood gates to the world market will open," Dave Loutham told Western Standard magazine. "If Canada starts 100 per cent testing in the morning, then all the countries in the world – including the U.S. – will open their doors by lunchtime."

An exaggeration but does Loutham have a point?

Countries like Japan wanted assurance that imported beef is 100 per cent safe and said that testing would satisfy them. But Japan is now backing off on zero tolerance and will change its rules to test only animals over the age of 21 months.

The vast majority of Canadian farm lobbyists and political leaders argue the $30 test for each animal is a waste of money and effort. Science shows they are right. Testing each animal doesn’t improve food safety because the parts of the animal that can be infected – such as the brain and spinal cord – are removed from the carcass before it can be sold. But science has little to do with the issue at hand. We want to sell to domestic and foreign consumers, not to North American scientists. The consumer decides what he or she will buy and its up to producers to give them what they want. So, what does the consumer want?

Apparently, they don’t want or demand blanket testing. Beef consumption increased in Canada after mad cow was discovered and Canadian beef exports are now running at 90 per cent of pre-BSE levels.

It would be a mistake to blanket test now, says the federal Minister of Agriculture Andy Mitchell. "One hundred per cent testing could end up putting the livestock industry in an even worse situation by reinforcing the erroneous perception that testing contributes to food safety objectives."

He adds that testing younger animals is useless because it will not give us a better picture of the prevalence of the disease because of the time it takes for BSE to develop in cattle. "We do not want to implement a system that provides a false assumption that by testing an animal, we have improved food safety, because that is simply not the case," Mitchell argues.

Will Verboven, editor of Alberta Beef magazine, notes that private enterprise in Europe solved the BSE crisis there when it stepped in with BSE-testing on every animal.

"In countries like France, Germany and Switzerland, retailers were quick to offer beef that was tested for BSE, complete with confirmation labels," Verboven writes. "It is generally agreed in Europe that marketing action played a critical role in quickly restoring consumer confidence in beef."

Soon, the fear of BSE subsided and stores stopped carrying BSE-tested meat because consumers were no longer willing to pay a premium for it. Only McDonald’s restaurants in Europe still sell BSE-tested beef only.

But eastern Ontario director for the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association John Newman argues that the European solution won’t work here.

"Europe is a totally different case," Newman said. "They had 125,000 cases of BSE and 100 people died. Consumer confidence went to zero. Here, we hardly blinked our eyes. In fact, we ate more beef. It’s (BSE testing) driven by frustration and helplessness" and entrepreneurs who want to cash in on mandatory testing.

The solution, unfortunately, hangs in the halls of politics and could possibly end up in a court house. In our biggest foreign markets – the United States and Mexico – there are buyers willing to pay for a shipment of cattle tomorrow. It’s political wrangling and self-interested lobby groups (i.e. Montana-base R-CALF), not safety concerns, that keeps the lion’s share of our foreign markets shut tight.