No BSE status upgrade for U.S. Beef

The United States was denided an upgrade in BSE risk status from the current category of controlled risk to negligible risk by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). Even after years of laws and regulations in place that prohibit any specificied risk materials (bone, brain, spinal cords) from being put into animal feed and during those subsequent years, there were no occurances of BSE in the U.S., but apparently this was not good enough for the OIE. Below is an article from the Prairie Star about the BSE ruling, more after the jump:

http://www.theprairiestar.com/articles/2010/06/16/ag_news/livestock/live22.txt

***

Basically what it comes down to, as why the U.S. wasn't able to get the negiligible status, is politics, pure and simple. Countries like Australia which is one of the OIE members who has a negligible BSE risk, has benefited the most from the United States having BSE in the first place. They were able to step in and take up the Japanese and South Korean markets, of which the U.S. had been the number one exporter of beef to, and lost them. Of course they don't want American beef to get a leg up and take back some of the market share that Austraila was able to take away. Who can blame them?

---

Not to be left out of the equation, other countries that are in the same boat BSE wise, as the U.S.,are probably very happy and even contributed to the non-upgrade status for American beef. They all know that U.S. beef is the best in the world as far as quality, its the standard by which all others are measured. Countries like Brazil that have been on the verge of taking more and more market share away from the U.S. for years now, but are hampered by their FMD outbreaks, and are always looking for an edge. This non-ruling only helps their cause that much more for the potential of gaining more market share. And of course you have the EU, which hates that the U.S. use hormones in their beef and has for decades instituted a ban on this type of beef, even though the WTO ruled is was illegal to do so (they still don't care, and continue to fight the WTO's ruling). Im sure the EU and other countries, mainly those they have free trade agreements with, teamed up to make sure that the American beef industry did not get to take a step forward with an improved BSE risk status.

However, it is only a matter of time before the U.S. will have the chance to rectify the BSE status and gain market share back that it once lost. You ask how this will happen? Quality, safe, wholesome, nutritious beef will always be in demand. And when you set the standard, people will come.