"We are being treated unfairly by our trading partners, and we are in danger of losing a generation of producers," he added.

While Canadian producers were barely hanging on, October futures of beef below the border rose to US$0.823 per pound at Chicago, the highest in 10 years.

"The key problem now," Gracey says, "is cow slaughter." Forty-one per cent of the cows killed are going to the U.S., partly because off-shore beef was coming in so cheaply Canadian processors couldn’t compete. With reduced volumes, Ontario and some of the Prairie provinces allowed their processing plants to disappear.

To maintain the status quo, the beef cow herd needs to be reduced by about 10 per cent every year and the dairy cow herd about 23 per cent, Gracey says. Though dairy farmers are seldom mentioned in stories about BSE, "They are suffering grievously," he says. "What’s happened is horrific. The ripples will be felt everywhere."

Some of those ripples aren’t pretty. Canadian importers have been bringing in record amounts of off-shore and U.S. meat in 2003. The biggest increase has been coming in after May 20. Under pressure from cattlemen, the Canadian Government by mid-July stopped issuing supplemental permits for import.

On August 23, Canada had imported 106,000 tonnes of off-shore beef, a 12 per cent increase over the previous year. When U.S. figures are added, Canada imported 159,000 tonnes of beef. Canada’s commitment to non NAFTA countries is 76,000 tonnes of beef.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Ontario Cattlemen’s Association and Beef Improvement Ontario are sponsoring the task force.