This a blast from the past and major pet peeve of mine: testing would have been cheaper than sales loss

Posted on Thu, Apr. 28, 2005

Study: Voluntary testing for mad cow would help beef industry

ROXANA HEGEMAN

Associated Press

WICHITA, Kan. - The loss of export markets after the discovery of a case of mad cow disease in the United States cost the beef industry between $3.2 billion and $4.7 billion in losses last year, according to an economic impact study released Thursday.

The report, commissioned by the Kansas Department of Agriculture, also concluded that voluntary testing for the disease would have provided an economic gain to the beef industry despite the added testing costs.

Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Adrian Polansky said he requested the study because he had not seen any comprehensive research on the costs and benefits of U.S. Agriculture Department policy changes and the impacts of lost exports following the nation's first mad cow case.

"When we look at the slow progress in terms of (reopening trade) with Japan and South Korea, it may well be the end of 2005 until we see movement - and so those numbers enlarge significantly," Polansky said.

Kansas State University's Research and Extension Service released its 65-page "The Economic Impact of BSE on the U.S. Beef Industry," which looks at regulator costs, losses and consumer reactions after the December 2003 discovery of a mad cow case in Washington state.

The report's most controversial finding is likely to be that profits from overseas markets would have more than paid for testing for mad cow disease, the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.

The U.S. Agriculture Department has been adamantly opposed to voluntary BSE testing, saying such tests would not identify mad cow in younger cattle and are not needed. The department has denied requests by some beef processors, including Arkansas City-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, to allow testing of all animals that come through their facilities.

Suzan Holl, a spokeswoman for the USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, said the agency could not comment Thursday because it had not yet had enough time to review the Kansas State study.

Kansas State researchers estimated it would have cost $640 million to test all cattle slaughtered in the United States last year, not counting the investment needed to equip processing plants for the testing. But if the U.S. were to regain just 25 percent of the Japanese and South Korean export markets by testing 75 percent of U.S. cattle slaughtered, it would essentially break even with its testing costs, the researchers found.

And if the U.S. could regain half those markets by testing just 25 percent of its slaughtered cattle, the country's beef industry would be ahead by nearly $750 million, making an additional $22.84 per head.

"My view is that this analysis confirms voluntary testing for market access certainly would provide economic gain to the industry," Polansky said.

Polansky said if the U.S. could regain all of its lost 2003 exports by testing just 10 percent of cattle, the beef industry would see a gain of $53 per head.

"Certainly one small meatpacker voluntarily testing would not have a great impact across the entire industry; but if that had an economic benefit to that firm, one would assume in a market-driven economy others would see that profitability and potentially participate in that voluntary program," Polansky said.

Days after the discovery of the United States' first mad cow case, 53 countries banned U.S. beef imports.

In 2003, U.S. beef exports were valued at $3.95 billion - accounting for 9.6 percent of this nation's commercial beef production, according to the Kansas Department of Agriculture. About 90 percent of those exports went to five countries: Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Canada and Hong Kong.

While Mexico and Canada partially resumed beef imports last year, exports of U.S. beef in 2004 still ran 82 percent below 2003 levels.

Polansky was encouraged that Taiwan, Kansas' fifth largest export market, recently resumed beef trade with the U.S. But he said beef producers need access to the Japanese market, which accounted for 35 percent of the value of beef exports in 2003.

original link is now dead
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/11514980.htm
Tina June 13, 2005 - 2:18pm

This is a follow up on a story that's more than 3 years old. Ironically, in a thread here a while back I had mentioned this attitude of the U.S. government toward mad cow testing and described the Creekstone Farms situation.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15855-2004Apr15.html [dead]
http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/blocks41604.cfm

Company's Mad Cow Tests Blocked
USDA Fears Other Firms' Meat Would Appear Unsafe

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 16, 2004; Page A01

ARKANSAS CITY, Kan. -- To Creekstone Farms manager Bill Fielding, his company's idea does not seem unreasonable. In order to satisfy its very important customers in Japan -- customers the company needs to survive -- Creekstone wants to test for mad cow disease every one of the cattle it slaughters.

To do that, Creekstone has spent more than $500,000 to build the first mad cow testing lab in an American slaughterhouse, and it has hired seven chemists and biologists to operate it. The company made the investment after Fielding returned from a trip to Japan convinced that officials there would lift their ban on American beef -- imposed after an infected cow was found in Washington state last December -- only if American companies adopt the Japanese practice of testing every animal.

But there is a big obstacle in the way of Creekstone's mad cow initiative: The U.S. Department of Agriculture will not allow it.

The company has all the equipment it needs, but it does not have the kit of chemical reagents needed to run the tests. In the United States, the USDA controls the sale of those kits, and the agency ruled last week that only labs in the U.S. government's testing program can buy them.

...

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Note that any projections of profit based on testing for mad cow imply that it won't be found or at least not in anything above insignificant levels (if there is such a level). The implication being that since the government refuses to allow extensive and, more importantly, open testing the likelihood is that the beef market is contaminated to a degree that market value would decrease - to say the least.

If I cared for red meat enough to demand that the food supply be trustworhty, I'd urge a letter-writing campaign to the beef industry lobby telling them I'll resume eating cow when cow is an inspected commodity, 100% inspected. But I don't care. Without the worry of prion diseases there is still plenty of harm in a diet heavy on red meat. and there are a few other reasons for the cattle industry to fade away.

ORGANIC BEEF tested safe, organic, free range, no-antibiotics