In the year 2003, Harley Davidson celebrated 100 years as a company, a young Cristiano Ronaldo made his Premier League debut for Manchester, the United States was preparing to invade Iraq, and in Canada, we were dealing with a small outbreak of SARS.
Also of significance that year here in Canada, was a case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), also known as Mad Cow Disease, discovered in Alberta. This led to countries like Japan, the USA, and a number of South American countries to immediately halt all imports of Canadian beef.
Another of those countries to follow suit was Taiwan.
Fast forward to last week, the small island nation announced that it had lifted a restriction on imports of Canadian beef and beef products from animals over 30 months of age - a restriction that had been in place since 2003. They previously lifted their ban on beef from animals under 30 months of age in 2016.
Back in Manitoba, Carson Callum of Manitoba Beef Producers recognizes the significance of this, especially since Japan lifted a number of import bans on Canadian beef earlier this year as well.
"From a global standpoint, it's good to see these different markets making these science-based decisions and removing those BSE-era restrictions ... it's important to have that diverse market access across the globe for our valuable product we produce", said Callum.
The combination of Taiwan and Japan dropping bans on imports of Canadian beef, with the fact that Canada was approved in 2021 as a nation with a "negligible" risk for BSE, means Canada's surveillance and policies surrounding BSE are working, according to Callum.
"We learned a lot since 2003, we saw the implications in the industry and needed to ensure that we're surveilling for it and making proper decisions to remove any sort of risk that may come to our export markets ... all the efforts that have been done in the country to make this negligible risk status happen is really important, and will continue to be important as we look at expanding and diversifying markets across the globe to better support Canadian beef."
While countries like Taiwan and Japan lifting import bans on Canadian beef can definitely be seen as a positive, there is still at least one major holdout. That being China, who banned imports of Canadian beef after an atypical case of BSE discovered in Canada in 2021. That ban still remains in place.
Countries like South Korea and The Phillippines also imposed similar bans in 2021 but they were lifted by January the following year.
Hear more from Carson Callum, the General Manager of Manitoba Beef Producers, during Agriview The Noon Hour Edition, today.
