CFIA steps up breeding sheep and goat import restrictions

by SUSAN MANN

Canadian farmers wanting to import breeding sheep and goats from the United States will face increased restrictions on male animals starting Feb. 1 as stepped up efforts to control scrapie take effect.

Under the current policy, there aren’t any import restrictions on male small ruminants for breeding purposes coming from the United States. The new rules, being introduced by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, place restrictions on male small ruminant animals. The current rules stay in effect until the new ones are in place.

The import restrictions are designed to help Canada continue its efforts to control scrapie in sheep and goats. Scrapie is a degenerative and eventually fatal disease affecting the central nervous system of sheep and goats. The disease is found in both Canada and the United States (and elsewhere in the world), and both countries are trying to control the disease’s spread along with trying to eradicate it.

One sheep producer says the tighter the importation rules are the better even though she doesn’t import any sheep herself. Shelagh Finn owner of Lamb Lady Farm near Palgrave says “I am all in favour of ensuring that we only allow animals” of the highest health standards to be imported into Canada. “The revised policy is bringing it closer to that.”

She has a closed flock of 50 award-winning breeding Rideau Arcott sheep and is certified on the Canadian Voluntary Scrapie Flock Certification program. She also participates in the voluntary maedi-visna (a viral disease affecting sheep) monitoring program, and her flock has tested negative for that chronic wasting disease.

“To me (the new import rules) are a good thing but then I have very high standards for my own flock,” Finn notes, adding there aren’t enough farmers on the voluntary sheep health monitoring programs. One reason for that could be they are expensive for farmers to participate in and there’s no government funding for them to take part.

CFIA spokesperson Tammy Jarbeau says by email the agency’s import policy was revised “to be consistent with the goal of scrapie eradication shared by the Canadian industry and CFIA.”

Currently, import restrictions for scrapie control exist for female small ruminants in the CFIA’s policy but there aren’t any restrictions for males, she notes. “Males are equally likely to be infected with scrapie, but are at a lower risk for transmitting the disease. The different options (for the importation of males) in the revised policy reflect this lower risk.”

The new policy says female and male small ruminants can be imported from the United States from flocks or herds that have reached “negligible risk status” on the U.S. Voluntary Scrapie Flock Certification program, Jarbeau says. Rams can also be imported from any flock or herd if they are shown to be scrapie resistant using a genotyping test or if they come into a Canadian herd enrolled in the Voluntary Scrapie Flock Certification program.

The Canadian Sheep Federation says in a Nov. 16 notice on its website “there is no question this policy represents increased restrictions on the import of new genetics, but is designed to protect the industry over the long term.”

Jennifer Haley, executive director of Ontario Goat, says they agree with the sheep federation the new rules “strengthen the restrictions on what can come in.” But the new policy will ensure the long-term health of the national goat herd is maintained.

“We understand the policies need to be updated and are stringent for a reason,” she explains. However, “we know (the new policy) will provide some frustration to the industry at a time when we need more animals and a diversity of genetics.”

Ontario goat producers need more goats and better producing animals, she says. However, at the same time “we need to have the controls in place to maintain our disease status to mitigate against the risk.”

There are Ontario farmers who import goats and “it’s already a pretty restrictive process. It’s not like a flood of animals come in all the time,” she says.

Haley says she didn’t have the actual population of goats in Ontario, but there are about 240 licensed commercial dairies ranging from 75 to 1,200 milking does, meat goat herds and smaller dairy breeders.

“What’s promising to us is the funding that we’re doing on the scrapie genotyping,” she says. Ontario Goat announced Nov. 17 the industry has received funding to test goat breeds and herds for genotypes that may be resistant or susceptible to scrapie. Researchers will randomly select meat and dairy goat producers to genotype up to 1,500 Ontario goats.

The research could possibly eventually open up potential export markets for Ontario goat genetics and change how outbreaks are controlled, the Nov. 17 press release says.

Corlena Patterson, Canadian Sheep Federation executive director, says “we’re trying to take measures domestically to decrease the incidences and prevalence of scrapie in Canada. Part of doing that is we align the import policy with our domestic strategy.”

The increased import restriction shows Canada is becoming more risk adverse when it comes to the risk of importing scrapie, she notes.

The new rule is a “good balance between gaining access to genetics and making sure we have policy in place that decreases the risk of bringing scrapie-infected animals into Canada,” Patterson says.

In sheep, the prevalence of scrapie in Canada is estimated at .08 per cent, or one in 1,300 mature sheep will be infected with scrapie, she says. In goats, the conservative estimate of scrapie in Canada is 0.26 per cent, or one in every 383 mature goats.

CFIA shared the information on the new small ruminant policy for breeding animals with industry stakeholder, Jarbeau says. But the agency hasn’t posted a notice about it in the news section of its website.

Jarbeau says the policy will be published in the Guidance Document Repository on the CFIA website. BF