MB Beef Producers Welcomes USDA Decision to End Bovine T-B Pre-export Test

Manitoba breeding cattle and bison producers will see new market opportunities open up thanks to a recent decision by the U.S. Department of Agriculture

by Candace Derksen – Steinbach Online

After a 20 year effort, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has convinced the U.S.D.A. to lift a requirement for pre-export bovine tuberculosis testing on animals coming from Manitoba. The first export restrictions were put in place back in 1997.

“This is great news,” said Brian Lemon, general manager for Manitoba Beef Producers. “This has been a long, long row to hoe as they say.”

“This has taken a Herculean effort by Parks Canada, Sustainable Development Manitoba, hunters and trappers, First Nations and the cattle industry”

Lemon added the change took so long because officials had to prove a negative not only in the cattle industry, but also in the wildlife within the Riding Mountain Eradication Area (RMEA). He explained that the source of bovine tuberculosis was always known to be a reservoir within the elk herd in the RMEA.

“This has taken a Herculean effort by Parks Canada, Sustainable Development Manitoba, hunters and trappers, First Nations and the cattle industry to try and put together a statistical story to show that we’ve tested enough animals, and they continue to come back negative, that we’ve got good good reason to say the wildlife is (disease) free.”

In fact, there hasn’t been a case of bovine T-B in Manitoba since 2008.

Not only did this pre-export testing take a toll on the animals in terms of stress, but it also impacted the cost of production, said Lemon. He pointed out that producers in the RMEA have been testing their herds for nearly the full 20 years.

“(They) have been required by the CFIA to bring their animals together so the CFIA vets could administer a screening test and animals that came back with a questionable result had to go for confirmatory testing. In some cases they needed to be destroyed so that they could be a confirmed negative just because there was a false negative on an animal,” said Lemon.

Lemon added this was the final federal restriction to be lifted on cattle exports to the U.S., but he did caution however that individual American states continue to have their own bovine T-B testing requirements.