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Notes from our Chair
The Development of a Scrapie Certification Program
March,
2004
The
US border closure has proven to be a rough ride with Canadian sheep producers
seeing rock bottom prices, the situation for many producers across the
country can be described as very challenging. However, as John Hemsted,
Chair of the Ontario Sheep Marketing Agency likes to say "challenges
provide us with an opportunity at every turn". It appears that the
opportunity arising from this situation will be the chance to make some
much needed changes to our National Scrapie Program.
Canada has had a scrapie control program since 1945 that has been effective
in controlling the spread of the disease, but not eradicating it. The
discovery of BSE in Canada and the United States, coupled with the development
of new scrapie surveillance technologies, has reignited discussions to
make changes to our National Scrapie Program.
On March 15th industry leaders, provincial staff and the CFIA met in Dartmouth,
Nova Scotia to review some existing projects and discuss implementation
options for a new program. The program will include research into genotyping
of animals for scrapie resistance as well as a scrapie surveillance initiative.
All of this will eventually allow the sheep industry to provide a Scrapie
Certification Program.
This program will be the result of cooperation between sheep industry
organizations. The CSF will provide the lobby effort on the federal level
while the CSBA has committed $27,000 from their research funds to the
project and will take the lead on the project funding applications. The
Ontario Sheep Marketing Agency has volunteered to be the administrator
for the Certification Program for any region that requires that service.
Other provincial organizations have either run or are planning to run
programs that will tie into this project. These include the BC Purebred
breeders, the Alberta Sheep & Wool Commission and Purebred Breeders,
Centre Production Ovine du Quebec and the Nova Scotia Purebred Association.
As well, the project will hopefully see involvement from provincial agriculture
departments from across the country.
The critical next step is convincing the Federal Government to provide
funds for this program. Jonathan Wort (chair of the CSBA) and I began
the lobbying process in February when we met with Minister Speller. We
now need the federal government to allocate a portion of the TSE research
money (Speller announced $92 million in December of 2003) to our industry.
With 13,000 sheep producers affected by this border closure (compared
to 100,000 beef producers) our fair share of the allocated dollars would
be more then adequate to run this program over the next 5 years.
We all have a role to play in lobbying government for action and funds.
While it is important for the politicians to hear from our organization
it is equally important for them to hear directly from producers. Take
the opportunity to talk to your provincial or federal elected representatives
and be sure to remind them of the action our industry needs on this issue.
Randy Eros
Chair, Canadian Sheep Federation
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