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By The Canadian Press

World body says Canadian beef officially poses ‘negligible risk’ for mad cow disease

May 28, 2021 | 10:53 AM

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An international animal-health watchdog has officially declared Canadian beef as posing “negligible risk” for mad cow disease.

The designation, which is the most preferred category, was approved on Thursday (May 27) by the World Organization for Animal Health.

Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau says the decision will give Canada new leverage in efforts to find additional export markets for live beef and cattle.

Beef producers and the federal government have been working to restore the industry’s lustre ever since the first domestic case of mad cow disease was detected in Canada in 2003.

Canada has been deemed a “controlled-risk” country for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, since 2007.

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To secure the change, Canada needed to show that it has been at least 11 years since the birth of the last infected animal, which occurred in 2009.

The president of the Calgary-based Canadian Cattlemen’s Association says beef producers are finally able to turn the page on the mad cow era, which brought unprecedented hardship to the industry.

In a statement, Bob Lowe says, “An estimated 26,000 producers left the industry entirely between 2006 and 2011, and more than 8,000 square kilometres of pasture lands were converted to other uses during that period.