News

Canada’s BSE Risk upgrade could benefit U.S. beef industry

Canada’s BSE Risk (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy) classification was recently upgraded from “controlled” risk to “negligible” by the World Organization for Animal Health and that could be good news for US beef exporters.

Travis Arp, senior direct of export services, with the US Meat Export Federation explains.  “With this change in risk status for BSE, markets like Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and even closed markets like Australia, this is an opportunity for the US to go back to these trading partners and renegotiate those terms that were on those Canadian cattle,” he says. 

He says the next step would be expanding access to US beef into those market.

Arp says this also helps plants reduce costs and makes exporting beef easier.  “They have to segregate live cattle when they arrive to the plant, they have to segregate eligible products,” he says.  “And that is just added cost and complexity to the export process.”

Ireland’s BSE risk classification was also upgraded from “controlled” risk to “negligible” risk.