Local beef producers hope for 'silver lining' to mad cow concerns

Hope outcome will assure consumers of safety of beef

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

SPRINGFIELD -- Now that the cloud of dust surrounding recent news about 'mad cow disease' is settling, some local livestock producers say they're looking for a silver lining.

Concerns about the safety of the U.S. beef supply caused livestock prices to drop by 20 cents and jump-started a movement towards tighter federal regulation of domestic food producers.

Despite the drop, beef consumption in the U.S. has not changed and some of the latest reports from Canada indicate that Canadians are actually eating more beef than before.

The so-called "mad cow disease" is not a new concern, since it was first discovered in Great Britain about four years ago. The most recent concerns were raised when meat from a Canadian cow tested positive at a slaughterhouse in Washington state last month. Federal inspectors quarantined an entire herd of Canadian cattle and destroyed 10,410 pounds of meat following the discovery.

The disease, known scientifically as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy but more popularly referred to as 'mad cow disease', is thought to be a cause of Creutzfield-Jakob Disease, a fatal human illness that can be acquired by eating contaminated beef.

Although BSE has been studied extensively, scientists are unsure how the disease began but have learned that it can be spread through certain types of cattle feed, like bone meal.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced additional safeguards to further protect against BSE on Wednesday. The safeguards mostly deal with the processing of beef. They will also start a national system to identify animals. The USDA also said it is working with Canadian officials to investigate the origins of the positive cow.

Dennis Youngerberg, a cattle producer in rural Springfield, said concerns over BSE will likely affect his business. He said cattle prices have fallen by about $15 per 100 head of cattle. Brooding stock prices are also down although Youngerberg said he is unsure of just how far they have fallen.

He said it will depend upon how the U.S. Department of Agriculture handles the BSE situation.

"I don't know how long it will last," Youngerberg said.

Youngerberg said he is frustrated by news media reports, which he feels exaggerate the situation. He said the odds of humans contracting illnesses from beef are "thin." The U.S. had a bone meal ban since 1997ted case is not impossible.

He said the concerns are having 'a dramatic impact on prices until (the USDA) can figure out more information. He said the export ban affects close to 10 percent of the cattle market.

He said it will take time for prices to come back up because producers are going to need to regain public confidence.

"It's going to depend on whether or not they can prove where it came from and confirm if it was an isolated case or not," he said.

"The only thing I really question is whether it's possible to have a health impact on anyone," Youngerberg said. "The odds of a cow having it are close to prime to none."

Curt Fredin, co-owner of Fredin Brothers Feeder Cattle outside Springfield, said the renewed concerns over BSE actually came along at a convenient time. He said business in the cattle industry typically winds down as the holiday season draws closer. Fredin Brothers buys cattle that are still growing from ranchers and sells them to farmers, who "finish" them and send them to market.

Fredin said the concerns over BSE have caused a temporary slowdown in the business.

"It hit at a time when the run of fall cattle was winding down any way," said Fredin Brothers employee Doug Hamlin. "It would've been different if it had happened a month earlier, so we feel fortunate in that aspect."

Like Youngerberg, the Fredins are concerned that the outbreak is going affect cattle prices. They said the prices for export feeder cattle have already dropped from $1 per pound to 80 cents a pound.

Fredin said many livestock producers are expecting a 10 to 15 percent decline in the value of their animals when the market starts this coming week.

"If there is no more bad news, we think it will level out as soon as the panic and fear go away, which is what it seems to be doing anyway, and it all hinges on what people do," Hamlin said. "But the dust from this hasn't settled yet."

Hamlin said the companies foreign partners are the people that panicked the most. He said Japan, Korea and Taiwan buy about 10 percent of all the beef exported from the U.S. One fear that livestock producers had was that domestic beef consumption would follow foreign trends and decline as well, but Fredin said Americans are still consuming beef at the normal rate.

"We were in mass denial about this and we said it couldn't happen here even though we secretly figured it would," Hamlin said.

"It's a terrible thing for the industry but positives come out of bad things in the long run," Fredin added.

Fredin and Hamlin said they expect the federal government to tighten regulations on beef even further than before. They said they want to make sure the public understands that cattle producers take BSE seriously.

"It was safe before and it's that much safer now"

Many livestock producers are trying to join an information system that catalogs and tracks U.S. cattle from their birth. Fredin and Hamlin said the system was an idea that producers were slowly warming up to. He said concerns about BSE have kick-started producers into joining.

Hamlin said Fredin Brothers already has close to 1,000 calves in its system. The calves have numbered ear tags that correspond with the database, which contains information about each animal's vital statistics and individual history from birth.

"We don't like what happened but we're confident that the industry will survive," Hamlin said.

Representatives of the retail food industry said the outbreak has had little to no effect on the sales of beef in their stores.

Ruth Mitchell, the assistant vice president of communications for Hy-Vee Inc. in West Des Moines, Iowa, said that Hy-Vee stores "haven't seen any difference (in sales of beef) that we can attribute to 'mad cow disease'. Beef sales are holding steady."

Mitchell said sales of other types of meat have not risen since news of BSE in the United States broke earlier last month.

"It appears consumers are pretty well informed (about the situation)," she said. Mitchell credited media reports and federal officials, saying both have helped keep consumers aware of the BSE issue.

Sue Mackert, spokesperson for Coborn's of St. Cloud, which owns the New Ulm Cash Wise and Little Dukes stores, said "there has been no change in the buying habits. Beef is still a major item and consumers are still purchasing it."

Mackert said Coborn's is going to continue to monitor the issue, although she said none of the beef sold in Cash Wise is connected to the farm in Washington where BSE was discovered. She said sales of other types of meat at Coborns stores have not changed.

"People are still eating meat," she said.