'Why does it always keep springing up in the West?'
Thursday, February 19, 2015
by JIM ALGIE
A scheduled briefing by Dan Darling, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association vice-president and John Masswohl, the organization's government relations manager on the first day of this week's Beef Farmers of Ontario annual meeting turned into a BSE grilling as delegates questioned why virtually all Canadian cases of the disease have occurred in Western cattle.
On Wednesday, both Darling and Bob Gordanier, Beef Farmers of Ontario president, did refer directly in early remarks to a Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) report last week announcing the first confirmed BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) case in Canada since 2011. Both men assured the meeting that the case would have no impact on trade beyond an announced move by South Korea to suspend inspections of Canadian beef, pending further details about the incident.
However, Perth County delegate Bill Jeffrey got things rolling with his question from the convention floor about why infected animals keep turning up in Alberta.
"It's always Alberta," Jeffrey said. "Why does it always keep springing up in the West?" he said, kicking off a good, 10-minute session of similar questions on the subject.
Masswohl cautioned against speculation in the absence of concrete evidence from a continuing CFIA investigation of the recent discovery. He urged farmers to wait on investigators' findings.
"We know that BSE is a disease with a long, statistical tail," Masswohl told the room full of cattle farmers, many of whom lived through the 2003 crisis caused when the discovery of Canada's first native case of BSE shut down international trade in beef and livestock. "We've had a ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban since 1997 and that feed ban was enhanced in 2007," he said. In England, which experienced a catastrophic outbreak of BSE in the mid-1990s, a limited number of new cases continue to emerge, even now.
"We've started from a very low number but we'll have a case now and then until it's eradicated," Masswohl said.
Another questioner argued the reoccurring incidence of Alberta cases suggest a need for additional testing in that province. One speaker raised BSE as a possible explanation for the slow response of cow-calf farmers to current high market opportunities for beef cattle.
"Somehow we have to get to the minds of younger people and put money and trust in their hands," he said. "We need trust and resilience to bring on expansion," he said.
Expanding Ontario's Beef Industry is the theme of this year's two-day conference which opened, Wednesday, at the International Plaza Hotel.
Darling said there are signs of herd rebuilding in some American states but so far not in Canada. Masswohl assured BFO members that federal inspectors will answer their questions.
"We are so dependent on confidence, " Masswohl said. "What we're talking about here is one case of BSE."
"We have to try and base everything on facts and investigations," Masswohl said.
Interviewed later, Jeffrey recalled remarks by former Ontario Agriculture Minister Helen Johns at the time of Canada's 2003 BSE crisis when she drew attention to the absence of cases in Eastern Canada.
"It's confusing," said Jeffrey, who operates a 1,100-head feedlot. "Is it the inspections, is it feed slipping through?"
"I want them to hear the questions," Jeffrey said of CCA officials.
"I'm not pointing any fingers . . . We need everybody. But why does it keep coming up in Alberta?" Jeffrey said. BF