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Beef producers want American SRM rules

The Canadian cattle producers are lobbying to harmonize some of their food regulations with their American counterparts, because Canada's rules are costing producers a lot of money, particularly in regard to specified risk materials (SRMs).



The Canadian cattle producers are lobbying to harmonize some of their food regulations with their American counterparts, because Canada's rules are costing producers a lot of money, particularly in regard to specified risk materials (SRMs).

"With the Canadian rules we go a tiny bit further in removing specified risk materials (SRM) than in the U.S," said Ryan Thompson, manager at Borderline Feeders Incorporated, a feedlot company based in Ceylon.

SRMs are parts of a cow associated with the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad-cow disease. SRMs include things such as the skull, brain, eyes, tonsils, spinal cord, and nerves attached to the brain and spinal cord. These parts are removed immediately after a cow is killed, before cuts of meat are taken from the carcass.

Over the past week there has been increasing talk of the possibility of harmonizing the regulatory standards of a variety of products between Canada and the United States. These products include a wide variety of things such as vehicles and food; the issue of harmonizing food regulations has stirred up a significant amount of controversy.

These talks began to heat up when President Barack Obama gave Prime Minister Stephen Harper a congratulatory phone call after the election. In this phone call they discussed the newly-formed Regulatory Cooperation Council, a body that would be responsible for harmonizing regulatory standards in both countries.

Consumer advocates and large corporations have been throwing in their two cents on the issue, but there is a group that hasn't been heard from for the most part, small businesses. Businesses such as Borderline Feeders Inc.

"We've been asking the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for years to harmonize SRMs with the Americans," said Thompson. The "we" that Thompson refers to is the Canadian Meat Council (CMC). Thompson recently attended a CMC meeting where they discussed costs of SRM removal.

It is forecast that in 2011, 54 metric tonnes of SRMs will be removed from cattle per day. In 2009 it cost $128.33 per metric tonne to do this. There is not yet a forecast number for how much it will cost in 2011. The forecast amount of SRM removed from a cow over 30 months old in 2011 is 53 kilograms.

What Thompson and his fellow cattle producers want to see is harmonization with the less-expensive American regulations for SRM removal.

"The problem is it's not a food safety issue. We import beef processed in the U.S back into Canada, The fact we have different rules is costing us money despite the fact both countries have safe beef," said Thompson.

While the same parts of cattle are considered SRM in Canada and the United States, one of the major factors that increases prices in Canada are the disposal costs. In the U.S some SRMs can be used in products such as fertilizer, while in Canada all SRM must be incinerated or sent to a special landfill, exclusively used to hold SRMs.

"Our regulations are a lot more stringent. This is something that is causing financial strife for (Canadian) producers because they are losing money when compared to their American counterparts," said Erin Hiebert, food safety and quality program manager for the Saskatchewan Food Center.

"(Harmonization) would be quite a big hurdle to jump because I doubt the U.S would want to increase regulation, and we'd have to be very careful about lowering ours. If there's backlash in the future it would be disastrous," said Hiebert.

If Canada and the U.S are approaching harmonization for the regulation of products such as food, things are in a very early planning stage. However, the dialogue that is beginning both locally and nationally has the potential to play an important role in deciding what direction the Regulatory Cooperation Council goes.