Canadian feed-ban compliance becomes front-burner issue: by Pete Hisey on 1/17/05 for Meatingplace.com; Canadian beef producers and governmental agencies, already reeling from the discovery of two new cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy within 10 days, are now finding that the vaunted ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban instituted in 1997 may have been followed with all the diligence of 55 mph signs on Wyoming highways.

A report published in the Calgary Herald charges that the Canadian equivalent of the Department of Health and Human Services, Health Canada, buried a 2000 report that warned that BSE was already "silently incubating" in the Canadian herd; that the feed ban was highly permissive, allowing some dangerous products, such as cattle blood, to be used in feed; and that Canada continued to import questionable products, such as cattle tallow and blood, and even animal feed, from areas that had severe BSE problems, like France.

The Health Canada report, written by consultants Joan Orr and Mary Ellen Starodub, said that the feed ban was extremely leaky, that it allowed parts from hogs and chickens into cattle feed, while allowing specified risk material (SRMs) from cattle into feed for both hogs and poultry, creating a situation ripe for cross-contamination, and that was a ban essentially run on the honor system.

The farmer whose animal tested positive for BSE in early January said he was shocked, because he had fed his cattle only homemade feed and a single, authorized supplement. The farmer, Wilhelm Vohs of Innisfail, Alberta, told Canadian reporters that 104 other calves, all purebred Charolais, were fed the same supplement in the spring of 1998, with 70 of them eventually sold to feedlots and the other 34 used for breeding. The animal that was tested was born in March 1998, some seven months after the ban was instituted.

Under the Canadian feed ban, there was no recall of contaminated feed manufactured before the ban, because the government saw feed as a low-risk source of BSE infection. Dr. Darcy Unseth, a veterinarian with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, told the Edmonton Journal that the feed ban was seen as a secondary line of defense, and feed manufactured before the ban was instituted was allowed to remain in the wholesale and retail marketplaces.

Concerns about border reopening intensify

The discovery of the fourth infected Canadian animal, including one that was discovered across the border in Washington state, and the suspicion that potentially dangerous feed is still in circulation in Canada and possibly the United States, has created a firestorm of publicity on both sides of the border. While Canadian authorities continue to assure farmers that the case will not delay the reopening of the border to Canadian cattle, voices are rising in both countries urging a slowdown in the timetable.

John Hoeven, governor of North Dakota, is the latest American politician to urge a wait-and-see report, saying that the border should not reopen until authorities have completed a rigorous test of feed supplies. California Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman is expected to join with other congressmen to attempt to reverse the USDA rule, and senators from farming states are calling for an investigation of the Canadian feed industry.

USDA has sent a technical delegation to Canada to "assist" Canadian authorities in their investigation, which is reportedly centering on the feed records at Vohs' farm, and to "assist" in an audit of the Canadian feed industry ordered by Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association is also sending investigators to assess the situation.

Plus, Canada is reportedly moving into hurry-up mode to institute a total ban on all bovine products in all animal feed. That legislation, already in the works, is expected to go into effect rapidly.