Finger-pointing angers Canadian cattle raisers

By Nicholas K. Geranios
The Associated Press

	JEFF MCINTOSH / CANADIAN PRESS Cattle peer out from a pen near Iron Springs, Alberta, last week. Canada plans to spend $72 million in its battle against mad-cow disease over the next five years to expand testing to 30,000 cattle.
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LETHBRIDGE, Alberta — In the heart of Canada's cattle country, ranchers feel a bond with their American colleagues, one built on a century of trade.

"My area was settled by Texans and Texan cattle, and cattle have been moving back and forth ever since," said rancher Neil Jahnke, who runs 1,200 head near Gouldtown, in southwest Saskatchewan.

He and other Canadian ranchers view the land where they make their living as an uninterrupted range over which cattle, feed and processed beef move back and forth freely between Canada and the United States. The border is just a line on a map.

They insist the North American cattle industry is so intertwined that it makes little sense to differentiate between American and Canadian beef. That's why they're angry about finger-pointing in the United States after the discoveries last year of mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, in an Alberta Black Angus cow and a Washington state Holstein traced to Alberta.

What really angers them are efforts by some in the U.S. cattle industry and politics to distance themselves from Canadian beef, including a U.S. ban on imports. They say that appears to blame Canada for the two cases of the brain-wasting disease.

"We've never viewed BSE as a Canadian or U.S. problem; it's a North American problem," Jahnke said.

"There's a real overreaction and hysteria over minimal risk to human health," complained Arno Doerksen, a rancher in Gem and chairman of Alberta Beef Producers.

"In all reality, the border should be opened tomorrow," said Rick Paskal, a rancher and feedlot operator in nearby Pitcher Butte.

Before BSE was found in the Alberta Black Angus in May, cattle and feed moved freely between the United States and Canada. Afterward, the United States banned most Canadian beef.

Still unknown is the source of the disease that infected that cow and the Washington state Holstein, which tested positive for BSE in December. Scientists think feed containing contaminated cattle parts is the main transmitter of mad-cow disease, but no one yet knows where the feed came from.

That didn't stop U.S. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., from calling for all beef from cattle born, raised and slaughtered in the United States to be clearly labeled, and for all Canadian beef to be banned from America.

"We all know now the mad-cow incident originated in Canada," Daschle said last week.

U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarians think the diseased Holstein was born a few months before the United States and Canada banned use of cattle byproducts in feed in 1997.

U.S. ranchers are eager to reopen markets in dozens of countries that slammed shut after the Washington mad-cow case, and Canadian ranchers fear their business will be sacrificed to protect U.S. trade.

The United States is Canada's biggest beef customer, and the U.S. ban has cost the Canadian cattle industry an estimated $2 billion since May. At its height, trade between the two countries reached 1.7 million head of cattle a year.

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin contends there is little threat to human health from the two mad-cow cases, and he intends to ask President Bush to lift the ban.

The Canadian Cattlemen's Association also wants to sit down with its U.S. counterpart to "set an example for the world to guarantee food safety," said Jahnke, the group's president.

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association in the United States does not believe it is fair to stigmatize Canadian beef, said Karen Batra, a spokeswoman for the group.

"We've shown strong support for the Canadian cattlemen in May, and they have done the same thing for us on this one," Batra said. "We need to work on this issue collectively and cooperatively."

Scientists from both countries have been working together to identify and trace the mad-cow cases, holding joint news conferences and refraining from inflammatory statements.

But even Ron DeHaven, chief veterinary officer for the USDA, appeared to draw a distinction between the two industries at a recent press conference, while acknowledging they are highly integrated.

"Despite where this cow might have originated, U.S. beef remains safe," DeHaven said. "We've not yet had a native-born case of BSE in the U.S."

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