Personal Injury Law

BSE Costing U.S. Beef Exporters Billions of Dollars

The 2003 discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a dairy cow of Canadian origin in a Washington State cattle herd cost U.S. beef exporters $11 billion between 2004 and 2007, a new report says.

Because many countries restricted imports of U.S. beef after that 2003 event for reasons inconsistent with international standards, the International Trade Commission undertook a study.  It's report is titled "Global Beef Trade: Effects of Animal Health, Sanitary, Food Safety, and Other Measures on U.S. Beef Exports."

Meat & Poultry, the business journal for meat and poultry processors,  reports on the study:

Farm-gate sales of U.S. cattle and calves during the period between 2004 and 2007, the period from which this study is based upon, were $195.5 billion, so the $11 billion in losses estimated by the I.T.C. translates to 5.6 percent of cattle producers’ income, according to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The report also estimated tariffs and tariff-rate quota restrictions cost the industry another $6.3 billion from 2004 to 2007. 

For the rest of M&P story, go here.

Full post as published by Mad Cow Blog on October 08, 2008 (boomark / email).