The Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) updated national bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) surveillance program — put in place earlier this year to meet new international standards — has received 152 samples of risk material as of Aug. 11, it recently said.

It has also paid out $102,000 to date to veterinarians, cattle producers and deadstock collectors who have submitted invoices to the CFIA for services rendered. These include transporting BSE surveillance candidates to necropsy rooms, veterinary consultations and carcass pick-up.

WHY IT MATTERS: Canada is on guard against another brush with BSE, with the 2003 case impacts still very real in the industry’s memory.

Although classical BSE hasn’t been found in Canada since 2015 (an atypical case, considered to crop up sporadically and of which has not shown transfer to humans, was found in 2021), testing for the disease is just as important as ever, said Dr. Leigh Rosengren, chief veterinarian officer with the Canadian Cattle Association (CCA).

“Canada needs to continue to demonstrate to international trading partners that we are meeting the standards for international trade, so that means demonstrating we have an effective surveillance system,” she said.

“So if producers see or are concerned about an animal that they think might fit, this is absolutely critical that they contact their veterinarian, which is probably the easiest avenue to enter the surveillance system.”

The bulk of participation so far has been centred in Alberta,“but cattle are present across the country and we’re encouraging broader involvement from people who work with cattle in other provinces,” the CFIA wrote in an email.

System required for Canada’s BSE status

The need for national BSE surveillance is set by the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), which sets global standards to help countries prevent and control animal diseases — including BSE — while supporting safe trade.

That includes the need for a suveillance system that can quickly detect any re-emergence of classical BSE. In Canada, it’s needed to maintain the country’s current “negligible BSE” risk status that protects trade with intrenational beef and cattle buyers.

New WOAH standards came out in May 2023 in recognition of a drop in global BSE incidents. That paved the way for a more streamlined surveillance system, said Rosengren.

“The new … standards allow for a more simplified surveillance system than was allowed previously and it really better matches the reality in the field and is a cost reduction for countries,” she said.

“The standards do not lead to a reduction in effectiveness. They are equally as effective, but they are more flexible and more cost-effective.”

She noted that the new system is more flexible and based on risk. “(That means) what we need to do is to demonstrate that we are sampling those high-risk animals that meet a certain criteria.”

That criteria includes animals over 30 months old with a history that indicates a potential risk of BSE.

Online tool kicks off process

Canada has developed an online BSE surveillance candidate questionnaire to further make things easier for the sector. Found on the CFIA website, it’s intended to help producers determine if an animal should be tested for BSE, starting with questions about common symptoms like excessive salivation or teeth grinding, difficulty avoiding obstacles or abnormal pacing in circles. It’s estimated to take less than four minutes.

If the animal is eligible for testing, the form then collects more details such as its age, sex, production type, identifiers, breed and exact location, as well as the name and email address of the person completing the questionnaire.

A unique identifier is generated for all completed questionnaires to track the sample and enable invoicing to the CFIA.

Remember ruminant feed ban

If there’s one BSE prevention standard Rosengren would like to emphasize to cattle producers, it’s adherence to Canada’s ruminant-to-ruminant food ban. That means not feeding any ruminant-based material to other ruminants, defined in this case as cattle, sheep, goats, bison, elk and deer.

“That’s the most important thing producers can do,” she says.

“Most of the burden of ongoing prevention does fall on our rendering industry and our abattoir industry, because they are the ones that manage that specified risk matter (that can cause BSE).”

Low incidence drives appropriate testing

Although BSE testing in Canada has always been voluntary — even in the dark years around 2003 — BSE is also a reportable disease under the Health of Animals Act.

“This means that anyone responsible for or working with, cattle such as owners, veterinarians or laboratories must immediately notify the Canadian Food Inspection Agency if they suspect or become aware of the presence of BSE,” the agency says.

With the shrinking profile of the disease worldwide, however, and Canada’s long BSE-free gap, some might wonder about the necessity of checking cattle for BSE.

“I’d say to those producers, in some ways, they’re exactly right,” said Rosengren.

“Globally, the incidence of this disease has dropped, and that’s exactly why the World Organization for Animal Health changed their surveillance standards in recognition of that reality, to find that balance between simplicity and cost reduction while still protecting the health of consumers and the health of our cattle herd.”

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Australia imposed import restrictions on Canadian beef in 2003, following the discovery of Canada’s first domestic case of mad cow disease. It lifted a similar ban on U.S. beef imports last week.

Canada’s government celebrated the long-awaited resumption of access to the Australian market.

“With restored access to Australia, a key market in the Indo-Pacific, we can unlock more opportunities for our producers to deliver the top-quality beef we’re known for,” said federal Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald.

Analysts are skeptical about how much North American beef can be exported to Australia because the U.S. has a major deficit and is importing beef from Australia, Canada and other suppliers.

“U.S. beef is still very highly priced compared to Australian beef,” said Resilient Capital analyst Jerry Klassen.

“North American beef is really the highest-priced in the world.”

The Canadian Cattle Association, which represents farmers and feedlots that raise cattle, celebrated the Australian market reopening, saying in a news release it was one of the last remaining countries to have maintained mad cow disease restrictions on Canadian beef.

Canada’s cattle ranchers were devastated by the 2003 restrictions placed upon Canadian beef exports because much of the country’s beef production is exported, especially to the U.S.

—Reporting by David Ljunggren and Ed White

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The sampling program is now administered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency instead of the provinces, making it the same across the country from coast to coast.

Veterinarians are paid mileage and a consulting fee for collecting the sample and sending it off.

Even though a complete postmortem isn’t required, I feel we veterinarians should make it part of the process.

Knowing the cause of death benefits herd health, and it never hurts to have your veterinarian visit the farm so they can offer consultations and perform other procedures. It’s a win-win situation.

A veterinarian in Alberta told me that giving younger veterinarians an opportunity to perform autopsies on cattle older than 30 months improves their skill level and understanding of pathology and increases their ability to help the entire herd with valuable preventive medicine strategies.

The new system hasn’t changed procedures much in Alberta but has had a big impact in other provinces, particularly British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

Local veterinarians in B.C. weren’t really involved in the process in B.C. and no compensation was provided, so very few samples were taken.

Mileage wasn’t paid in Saskatchewan, so veterinarians tried to do the samples when they were in the area, but that was hit and miss.

To qualify, cattle must have at least one of the neurological signs and either be alive or were alive when the veterinarian treated the animal or the producer noticed the clinical signs.

The signs may be pretty broad, such as low carriage of the head and neck and excessive teeth grinding. Other more obvious neurological symptoms, such as stumbling, walking in circles, tremors and excessive salivation, are also on the list.

If the animals are down or dead, at least one of the clinical signs must have been observed before they went down or died.

For this reason, a sudden death does not qualify for a BSE test, but that might be the one you pay your veterinarian to do to determine if it was a one off or something that can be prevented.

Cases where multiple animals are affected at once don’t qualify, which makes sense because BSE would never hit that way.

Doesn’t hurt to review

Your veterinarian needs to see if the animals qualify, and I would encourage producers to encourage their veterinarians to review the website, even if they have previously done lots of BSE tests.

A search for “national BSE surveillance program” will find a manual that explains what qualifies and the form that the veterinarian needs to fill out to get an ID number for the sample.

There is a form for billing and a list of rates that the veterinarians are paid.

Rates for compensation and mileage vary by province, but they are fair. I sometimes wonder why the government always overcomplicates it, but they must have their reasons.

Veterinarians in Alberta were used to getting their BSE kits, but now supplies such as brain scoops and collecting jars are available from the Western Drug Distribution Center.

A right shaped autopsy knife works well for removing the brain stem, and then it is simply disinfected.

The samples are now submitted to only three labs: Lethbridge for Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Abottsford for British Columbia and Ottawa for the eastern provinces.

There are other possibilities for BSE collection, such as if deadstock transporters are picking up a candidate. This is where the producer could be paid the deadstock removal fee.

These situations are more likely to happen in the east, but it’s good information for everyone to know.

Protocols for which animals qualify and the collection and submitting of the properly refrigerated or frozen sample are also discussed.

Producers or veterinarians can send their questions to CanSurvBSE@inspection.gc.ca.

Protecting our record on BSE

I wrote this article as an opportunity for producers to help us maintain the BSE quota to maintain status, which is very important.

It’s also a way to illustrate how veterinarians in some provinces can become much more involved than they were previously and be compensated for it to help provide a more comprehensive health program to their clients.

I have always thought that there is an opportunity for other disease surveillance efforts to piggyback with the BSE program. Veterinarians are already on your farms, and other information could also be collected to help the Canadian cattle industry, such as genomic and nutritional data.

If your current veterinary service providers aren’t participating in the BSE, please ask them about it.

Since 2003 when it was first implemented, the program has provided a co-operative working relationship between large or mixed animal veterinarians and their provincial and federal counterparts to achieve a common goal in eliminating a zoonotic reportable disease. There is no reason why similar models in a one health environment couldn’t work.

Please share this information with fellow producers, your herd veterinarian and other professionals in agriculture. I am hoping breed associations, agricultural groups, veterinary clinic newsletters and social media take up on this important service message for the Canadian cattle producers.

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I had hoped that requiring meat plants to test specified risk materials such as spinal cords, brains and other nervous-related areas would have been eliminated once the country achieved negligible risk status.

However, the program is still in effect, resulting in higher costs for Canadian plants than for their American counterparts.

WHY IT MATTERS: Continued BSE testing and its extra costs remain a heated topic within the veterinary and agricultural communities.

Some experts argue that rigorous testing protocols should be maintained to prevent any resurgence of the disease, while others believe the risk is now sufficiently low enough to warrant a reduction in testing.

I would definitely agree with the latter.

One thing is certain: BSE left a lasting impact on global food safety policies.

The disease, which first emerged prominently in the 1980s in Great Britain, caused widespread concern and led to the implementation of stringent testing and control measures.

These measures were instrumental in identifying and isolating infected animals, thereby protecting the food supply chain from potential contamination.

Veterinarians were recently told that the BSE program would be changing March 7, but that has since changed. For now, it is the same as usual for the distant future.

The proposed changes would have been to just sample neurological cases that have the same type clinical signs as BSE.

It makes sense to do surveillance on unusual neurological cases, but for now, we are back to the old program.

In Alberta, this means veterinarians conducting complete autopsies on dead, dying, down and diseased cases, and the brain stem sampled and sent to the lab. This costs producers nothing, and in Alberta, they receive some compensation.

I have always said that if there was anything else that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency needed sampled, either for surveillance or research, it could be done by the veterinarians that were essentially certified to do the testing.

I realize that in Alberta it was done by licensed vets certified for collection of the samples, and each province has different protocols.

I do hope that more than 20 years of testing have shown producers the value of the complete postmortem.

Most times, a veterinarian can determine the cause of death from just the gross necropsy, and if not, samples can be taken and sent away.

I realize some cases are chronic, and producers have a good idea what they’re dealing with.

However, especially with sudden deaths and non-specific chronic cases, it is good to find out the positive diagnosis. Is it the start of a herd problem or just an individual case? Are you getting too many peritonitis or thin cows from kidney infection or Johne’s disease? Are you retaining cows until they’re too old and are missing teeth?

Much can be learned from an autopsy, and even if in the future the BSE program is reduced or eliminated, some of these cows and bulls should still be autopsied.

Autopsies are about helping with disease prevention and assessing cattle’s health.

I would have hoped that more than 20 years of the BSE program would have shown the need to monitor the prevalence of other diseases, similar to what the Alberta Veterinary Surveillance Network used to do years ago.

However, I am sure that if something worthy came along, it could be added to the program.

It is good for all of us to see how a co-operative spirit and dedication to testing essentially eradicated BSE in Canada.

It was a prime example of the field-practicing veterinarians working together with the slaughter plants, producers, provincial vets and the CFIA. It was also a win for the Canadian Cattle Association and its provincial counterparts.

The crisis helped unite us much as the threat of tariffs is today.

The CCA is much better off with us all on board working on disease surveillance and being as transparent as we can about the findings. It may be right over the next several months to state what the BSE program has meant to you on your individual farms and ranches.

Today, the news focuses on avian influenza in dairy cattle, foot-and-mouth disease in Europe and bovine tuberculosis in Saskatchewan.

We are stronger if we collectively work on a goal together, and the BSE example has taught us all a lot about how to do just that —“collaborate” for a common end goal.

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Despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s 30-day moratorium on his proposed 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian goods and services crossing the U.S. border, beef producers (among those in countless other industries) are still operating under a cloud of uncertainty.

Why it matters: Canada has previously turned to set-aside programs when supply chain backed up to the farm gate. If U.S. tariffs come into play, should another such program come into play?

However, there is an instrument that might minimize beef producers’ sting from these tariffs — one that was deployed just a few years ago in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: a set-aside program.

Put simply, a set-aside delays the slaughter of a percentage of finished cattle as beef processors deal with a glut (or what prominent market analyst Jerry Klassen calls “burdensome supply”) of cattle destined for slaughter.

This delay, in theory, reduces the number of cattle available to slaughter and in the process drives up cattle prices. Processors are able to pay feedlots a price at least equal to that of a normal market scenario for their finished cattle, said Klassen when speaking recently to the Co-operator.

During the COVID-era set-aside program, the federal government incentivized and supported feedlots by paying them for the feeding and maintenance of these set-aside finished cattle.

The set-aside system also maintains feedlots’ ability to use live cattle futures for their price discovery and risk management, said Klassen. At least that’s how it worked during the last two set-aside programs (one was also put in place following BSE). It’s somewhat unclear how accurate those futures would be in a scenario of such high tariffs.

On that subject, Brenna Grant, executive director of CanFax, wrote in an email, “Thickening of the border with tariffs result in a weaker basis. Canada could continue using U.S. cash and futures markets as a price reference. Over time, we would see adjustments in the basis that would be built into a new average price relationship.”

The more recent set-aside program was put in place in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario in 2020 in response to processor closures and shutdowns driven by COVID-19 outbreaks.

The federal government, through its AgriRecovery program, shelled out $50 million to help cover feedlots’ costs of maintaining finished cattle. The program ended in 2021.

So, going forward, where does all this leave the cow-calf producer? Canada is a net importer of feeder cattle, said Klassen. If Canada applies a retaliatory tariff on feeder cattle coming from the U.S., the domestic feeder cattle price would increase.

“So the cow-calf producer, through all this mess, probably comes out just the same, if not maybe a little bit better,” he said.

A search of Department of Finance Canada’s list of U.S.products that could be subject to 25 per cent retaliatory tariffs, released prior to the 11th-hour deal that paused tariffs until March, came up with no results for “feeder cattle,” “live cattle” or “cattle.”

In the past two set-aside situations, the finishing feedlot operator got a fair market price that “trickled down” to the backgrounding operator and the cow-calf producer, said Klassen.

In other words, the backgrounder and cow-calf operators got a higher price while the finishing operator got “a bit squeezed on his margins.”

If the concept of a set-aside is put back on the table, finishing feedlot owners will likely want sufficient funding to take care of the set-aside cows. During the COVID-era set-aside, some cattle producers felt the federal contribution did not match the scale of the problem.

“The $50 million for the set-aside program came nowhere close to what our ask was,” said then-Alberta Beef Producers chair Kelly Smith-Fraser in an Alberta Farmer Express article posted online May 19, 2020.

By the time the Alberta provincial government agreed to put up a 40 per cent share for the program, there were already 130,000 finished cows backed up in Alberta feedlots.

The program ended as the burdensome supply was absorbed, said Klassen, who believes new set-aside programs in Alberta and Saskatchewan could be launched in a “pretty orderly” fashion, partly due to past set-asides still being fresh in industry and political memory.

“In Canada, our industry just isn’t as big as the U.S., so it’s a little bit easier to start programs like that,” he said.

“Seventy per cent of the finished cattle are in Alberta and so it’s easy if you get Saskatchewan and Alberta on side, and probably they could work something like that out in Ontario.”

Klassen also floated the idea of a government set-aside program to support cattle exports to the U.S.

“That would probably be the most orderly way of marketing, so Canadian producers still would be faced with a similar market structure that they would have normally, but it would be under the government help.”

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The government has imposed precautionary movement restrictions at impacted premises and on animals that have been in contact with the case in Ayrshire, it said in a statement.

Further investigations to identify the origin of the disease at the farm are ongoing, the Scottish government statement said, adding there was no risk to human health.

“I want to reassure both farmers and the public that the risk associated with this isolated case is minimal. But, if any farmers are concerned, I would urge them to seek veterinary advice,” Chief Veterinary Officer Sheila Voas said.

BSE was first detected in Britain in the late 1980s, spreading from there to other parts of Europe and ravaging cattle herds until the early 2000s. It has been linked to the brain-wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

BSE incidence has markedly decreased over recent years and is now estimated to be close to zero cases per year worldwide, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH).

The previous confirmed classical BSE case in Britain was in 2021, and an atypical case of the disease was reported last year.

Classical BSE occurs through the consumption of contaminated feed, while atypical BSE refers to naturally and sporadically occurring forms.

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The United States has had to segregate a much smaller list of specified risk materials (SRMs) than Canada, which has resulted in more competitive challenges for beef processors.

The loss of small and medium-sized processing has been significant, said Dennis Laycraft, executive vice-president of the Canadian Cattle Association. Smaller processors can’t afford to separate SRMs and non-specified risk material, so large portions of the carcass go to waste, compared to larger processors.

“Just the quantity and the cost is so much higher in smaller operations and it also makes our larger plants not as competitive,” he said.

The Canadian Cattle Association is working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Canadian Beef Research Council on a risk study of Canadian SRMs. It’s been 13 years since the last risk assessment.

It’s taken longer than expected, Laycraft said, but the second-to-last version of the report was delivered Dec. 22. It will go out for international peer review, and Laycraft hopes the final report will arrive in March.

“In our view, it should support moving ahead with a change.”

Laycraft said once the risk assessment is received, and if it supports a change, the CCA will sit down with the CFIA to discuss the report.

It could then take anywhere from four months to several years for a regulatory change to work its way through the government.

The change would not affect the ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban that remains in place.

Hundred-day holdback

Another irritant, created by a difference in Canadian and U.S. veterinary certificates with South Korea, could also soon be solved.

South Korea was one of the last countries to open its borders to Canadian beef. Canada had to take South Korea to a World Trade Organization appeal hearing before a veterinary certificate agreement was negotiated.

That deal gave South Korea the ability to reject Canadian beef should any type of BSE — classical or atypical — be found.

The World Organization for Animal Health’s position is that countries should no longer close their border for an atypical case. These cases are random and unpreventable, and their numbers are exceptionally small.

The American agreement with South Korea follows international standards.

From the standpoint of American beef processors, that slight difference meant a risk to their growing exports to South Korea. It resulted in a 100-day holdback for Canadian cattle going to the United States for slaughter, if it was possible beef from those cattle could go to South Korea.

That resulted in U.S. processors creating separate slaughter runs for Canadian cattle, said Laycraft, and they made sure that meat from those cattle never went to South Korea.

Laycraft said the requirement made little sense.

“We’ve never had a case of BSE enter into a packing plant or into the food system.”

There are discussions ongoing among the U.S., South Korea and Canada. The U.S. wants the 100-day rule gone and South Korea is more concerned with food security than it once was, said Laycraft.

“I think things are lining up, but with three countries involved, it takes longer. Once we get rid of the 100-day rule, we get back to a normally functioning integrated market.”

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Canada’s Trade Minister Mary Ng and Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced the move Friday, saying Taiwan’s decision “will offer an opportunity to expand Canadian beef exports to Taiwan and diversify export markets in the Indo-Pacific region.”

“Expanding our trade relationships in the Indo-Pacific region is a top priority for the Government of Canada, and Taiwan presents many opportunities for Canada’s beef sector,” Bibeau said Friday in a release.

Ng had telegraphed Taiwan’s pending decision late last month during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade ministers’ meeting in Detroit, noting ongoing negotiations between Canada and Taiwan on a foreign investment promotion and protection arrangement.

Taiwan, among many other countries, had blocked imports of Canadian beef in 2003 following the discovery of Canada’s first domestic case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). It began accepting boneless Canadian beef from animals under age 30 months (UTMs) in 2007, though it paused those imports in 2015-16 on the discovery of Canada’s 19th BSE case, the first to be born after Canada’s “enhanced feed ban” was imposed in 2007.

The 30-month cutoff has been based on a safeguard imposed in Britain in the 1990s during that country’s BSE crisis. UTM cattle are believed to pose a lower risk of BSE infectivity even if those animals carry the agent that causes the disease.

Since then, however, Canada’s BSE-related beef safety cred has reached its highest possible ranking internationally. It was officially recognized in 2021 by the World Organization of Animal Health (WOAH) as having “negligible risk” status for BSE.

Canada last year was the seventh-largest supplier of beef and beef products to Taiwan, valued at almost $14 million out of Taiwan’s $1.9 billion total beef import market that year.

The Canadian Cattle Association said last month it’s “grateful for Taiwan’s decision to adhere to science-based trade,” noting the Indo-Pacific region “holds the greatest potential for beef export diversification.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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May 20, 2003, when the first positive test of a cow with BSE was confirmed; Aug. 10, 2003, when the U.S. and Mexico restored import access for Canadian boneless beef from animals under 30 months of age; July 14, 2005, when the U.S. reopened full access for Canadian beef, both live and processed.

Two decades on, Laycraft also thinks about the longer-term impact of that fateful day when classic-variant bovine spongiform encephalopathy [BSE] was discovered in an Alberta cow.

“We basically almost lost a generation of beef producers,” the long-time executive vice-president of the Canadian Cattle Association said.

WHY IT MATTERS: From traceability to herd size and efficiency improvements, BSE changed many aspects of Canada’s beef business.

It reshaped the sector, Laycraft noted. He likened BSE’s effects to the oil sector’s boom-and-bust cycles of investment, loss and consolidation.

“Those farmers or ranchers with more equity ended up acquiring those with less equity who couldn’t weather the storm,” he said.

The number of beef herds with 200 head or fewer steeply contracted, and now a much greater proportion of western Canadian cattle herds number 1,000 or more.

Pasture, and particularly native grasslands, also took a huge hit.

Many tens of thousands of western Canadian acres were converted to cropland. The effects of that transformation on soil health and climate change mitigation are only now being explored.

Laycraft used the word “paralysis” on multiple occasions when recalling the events of 2003. He remembers May 20 very well. He was in Edmonton that day, attending a press conference with then Canadian Cattlemen’s Association president, the late Neil Jahnke (the organization rebranded as the Canadian Cattle Association in 2022).

He was on his way back to Calgary when he learned that former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman had told a media gathering that her government had full confidence in the Canadian beef supply.

Nonetheless, within hours, the U.S. border closed to Canadian cattle and beef. Canada decided to suspend export permits, which prompted almost all countries in the world to ban imports from Canada.

“There were a couple of fringe markets that stayed open and were there when export permits resumed, but they were not substantial importers of Canadian beef,” recalled Laycraft.

The impacts rippled through the sector. Processors cut back purchases. Producers had to implement strategies to keep cattle longer on farms. Any herd expansion halted.

At the time, knowledge about BSE was still developing. By 2014, countries in Europe were confident they had protocols in place to identify and contain BSE, so they called off further research into the disease.

Even by 2007, there was a strong level of confidence globally that if protocols were followed, the disease could be effectively contained. That year, the World Organization for Animal Health instituted a three-tiered system for each country’s risk for the disease. Canada was declared as a “controlled BSE risk” country, one where recommended international guidelines are obeyed, but which has had cases in domestic animals born in the last 11 years.

Numerous countries began discussions with Canada for resumed beef imports.

But back in 2003, Canada relied on established knowledge about animal disease containment and human food safety to implement a BSE strategy. Looking back, Laycraft noted how impressively that unfolded.

“It was by far the most comprehensive and transparent investigation of BSE that had ever been conducted anywhere in the world,” he said.

There was also a close working relationship with the U.S. counterpart to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and this set the stage for what now can be recognized as a surprisingly rapid resumption of trade in some products to the U.S. and Mexico.

Laycraft has high praise for supporters across Canada, both inside and outside the beef sector. He credited this support to the ability of the government and industry leaders to assure the Canadian public that biosecurity measures already in place before BSE had effectively contained its spread and that a strategy was being implemented after the discovery to ensure the food supply remained safe.

“You started to see barbecues from one end of the country to the other,” he recalled. “By Father’s Day [in 2003], we actually had a shortage of beef because Canadians were so eager to help the farmers.”

By July 2003, year-over-year beef consumption in Canada had jumped by 70 per cent, a stark contrast to other countries that had BSE cases, some of which saw beef consumption plummet by as much as 90 per cent.

Processing began to ramp back up and, by 2005, was higher than two years earlier.

But other challenges came along. First, there was a strong loonie, which lowered returns for exports, and then high energy prices increased farm costs. Then came a recession in 2008, “a perfect storm decade” is what Laycraft calls it now.

“We were pretty happy to see 2010 come along and hopefully start out a new decade.”

Two months ago, Japan — the country’s second-largest export market — lifted the last of the restrictions it imposed 20 years ago when it reopened its doors to processed beef. It was a move Laycraft described as “kind of the last little piece that’s left in Japan.”

A few countries in the same region, including South Korea and Taiwan, have “relic restrictions,” but they apply to the U.S. as well as Canada and are more a testament to “the long time it can take for these things to work their way through the various steps to approval,” he said.

It also took until 2021 for Canada to make the World Organization for Animal Health’s list of “negligible risk” countries for BSE.

It has taken a long time, too, to tease out any silver lining from an event that devastated so many beef operations, but in retrospect, Laycraft said, there have been some.

“One thing we became was one of the most efficient cattle production areas in the world.”

Resources, both from government and from industry, were devoted to research and innovation into producing high-quality beef in a feed-efficient manner that could demand a premium price internationally.

“We became a leader in sustainability,” he said. “Survival tends to make that happen.”

In 2012, McDonald’s restaurant chain picked Canada for its global pilot project into sustainably raised beef, a move that made the country a leader on that front, he noted.

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Posting on Twitter Thursday from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade ministers’ meeting in Detroit, Mary Ng said Taiwanese officials have confirmed the decision, which she hailed as “great news for Canadian beef farmers and exporters.”

“As we negotiate our foreign investment promotion and protection arrangement, we continue to foster opportunities between our two economies, creating good jobs for Taiwanese and Canadian workers,” Ng said in a follow-up tweet.

Ng and Taiwan’s trade representative John Deng had announced in February that the two parties had agreed to begin formal negotiations on the investment promotion and protection arrangement (FIPA).

Taiwan has had an off-and-on trade relationship with Canadian beef exporters since 2003, when it imposed import restrictions following the discovery of Canada’s first domestic BSE case. Canadian boneless beef from animals under the age of 30 months (UTMs) was again admitted starting in 2007.

Taiwan would again shut its ports to UTM beef in 2015, following the discovery of Canada’s 19th BSE case, the first to be born after Canada’s “enhanced feed ban” was imposed in 2007. Canadian UTM beef, including certain “specified offal,” was again admitted starting in July 2016.

According to market development agency Canada Beef, as of the end of March, Taiwan was ranked No. 10 in 2023 year-to-date among Canadian beef’s export markets by dollar value and No. 9 by volume, taking 270 tonnes worth $2.48 million.

In full-year 2022, Taiwan took in 1,185 tonnes of Canadian beef, valued at $13.96 million.

The Canadian Cattle Association, in a separate tweet Thursday, hailed the minister’s announcement as “welcome news for Canadian cattle farmers and ranchers” and thanked Ng for her work on the beef trade file. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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