The global landscape has undergone a radical change since Canada’s beef
industry was devastated by the discovery of BSE (bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, or mad cow’s disease) in one Alberta cow in May of 2003.
Exports stopped cold, backing up cattle and beef in Canada where prices
plunged.
Hardest hit were cull cows for which there was virtually no market for
weeks.
By comparison, the United States Meat Export Federation says there has
been hardly any change in its exports following the discovery in April that a
dairy cow in California had BSE.
“All things considered, we are pleased with the manner in which beef
exports have weathered the most recent BSE case,” a federation official said.
Times have certainly changed. And just maybe the U.S. has sharper civil servants than the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to ensure that trade doors remain open.
“With the exception of Saudi Arabia, we have not suffered any
significant setbacks in terms of market access. And though we expected consumer
interest to slow temporarily in markets such as Korea, the May export results
were actually quite strong.”
May was the strongest month so far this year for U.S. beef exports, but
volume (95,221 metric tons) was down 13 percent compared to May 2011 and 10
percent lower (456,343 metric tons) through the first five months of the year.
