(Canadian Press)
U.S. Agriculture Secretary
Mike Johanns plans to host a discussion next month with beef industry officials that he hopes will speed the reopening of the Canadian border to import cattle.
Johanns toured a beef processing plant
south of Logan on Tuesday and met Utah producers who are struggling with the smaller cattle population since the border was closed because of a mad cow disease scare.
Johanns said the Agriculture
Department would continue the increased testing of cattle that followed the December 2003 discovery of mad cow disease in a Washington state heifer. Johanns said nearly 354,000 cattle have been tested and
that a decision on whether to keep up that pace would be "a ways down the road."
Department investigators reported earlier this month there is still a slight risk of mad cow disease in the
United States, especially in Washington, Idaho and Montana, where high-risk animals from Alberta were shipped. That's the region where the four cows with the disease in North America came from.
"We
don't have any doubt that we have a very, very safe product. In fact, a completely safe product," Johanns said.
There is a case pending in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Johanns hopes
will result in the reopening of the U.S.-Canadian border for beef transportation, but he could not estimate how quickly that might happen.
"Even as a lawyer I'm frustrated at times because you do
have to move through these hoops," he said.
Johanns announced that the USDA will hold the round-table discussion at the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus to discuss the safety of North
American beef and its economic effect of the issue on the industry. The discussion is expected to include government officials, beef producers, packers and academics.
There's a misconception that beef
may not be safe, Johanns said. He hopes once the public hears more safety concerns will be alleviated and the industry can speed up again.
Johanns came to Utah after meeting last month with Monty
Weston, president of the Utah Cattleman's Association. Weston, who runs a small cow-calf operation near the Wyoming state line, said he invited Johanns to see how the industry has slowed down.
"I
simply told him what was going on at this plant here in Hyrum, Utah," Weston said.
The U.S. government banned the import of Canadian live cattle in May 2003, after Canada reported its first case
of mad cow disease. Two more cases were discovered in Alberta early this year.
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