Commerce: US & Canada: How now beef fans, Mad Cow ban lifted!, wow!

Looks like the Canadian beef industry is back in business with its American customers. The lapse of commerce in the commodity may mean a long haul to restore trade to its previous levels, but the Canadian cattle industry and processors on both sides of the border are ready to go at the drop of a .... While exports to the US were called to a halt in May 2003, more than two years ago, moves had been made since to open the international flow across the border to hungry American customers seeking a full plate at more reasonable prices than the homegrown competition there can provide. After the US Drug Administration had closed the border to Canadian cattle, in response to the harrowing discovery of a case of Mad Cow in Alberta's herd, the ban seemed about to fall last March. But that didn't work out.

" ... [A] Montana judge ... blocked the USDA from reopening the border in March, saying it "subjects the entire U.S. beef industry to potentially catastrophic damages" and "presents a genuine risk of death for U.S. consumers."

Yesterday, the US Justice Department asked another court in Seattle to reopen the border, with no beefs. And again today, a higher US court has come to look more benignly on the Canadian situation.

The higher profits that have accrued to American cattle raisers has had a more negative effect on American meat processers, as well as end-use customers.

"U.S. cattlemen are getting more for their cows without the competition of Canadian beef, but profits have declined at packers and feedlots, which are paying higher prices for cattle to process.

They say Canadian cattle are safe, and that the ranchers are more interested in monopolizing supplies than protecting the meat-eating public."

So where's the beef? - Owlb

Major Update: "Mad cow 'threat': overblown politics. A commentary by Fred Harrop in The Christian Science Monitor, July 19, 2005.

To allay any new fears, the US Department of Agriculture moved to tighten the already stringent rules preventing and monitoring mad-cow disease. So as the July 4 weekend approached, Americans rightly shrugged off any concern over the steak supply and fired up their grills.

But some Democrats could not relax. They went zealously to work, trying to get the mad-cow death toll down from zero.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D) of California called the administration's response "more public relations than public health" and demanded a congressional investigation into "what went wrong." Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D) of Connecticut said that discovery of mad-cow disease in a native-born animal required "a major overhaul of coordination between HHS [Health and Human Services] and USDA [US Department of Agriculture]."

I think the US took too long in banning Canada's beef, and the ban only aided cattle raisers, not American processors and their employees. Of course, the ban did help Canadian processors and their employees who didn't have the capacity to keep up with remaining non-US demand. So, with the US opening, despite the Democrats, were back to the earlier problem in Canada, which favours the cattle raisers and not the smaller Canadian meat processors. - Owlb

Angry cowfolk vs Democrackers