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Talking to Americans
By
Randy Eros, Chair. - October 8, 2003
The
Canadian Sheep Federation led a mission to Washington D.C. this September
to lobby Americans for the reopening of the border for Canadian lambs.
We had a series of meetings scheduled over the 3 - day visit. The first
meeting was with members of the American Sheep Industry Association (ASI)
executive. We detailed the affects the border closure is having on the
Canadian Industry and discussed how the shortage of Canadian lambs will
disrupt those kill plants that rely on our product. There was concern
from both sides of the border on losing market share to Australia and
New Zealand. There was strong support for our initiative from the ASI
executive and we have been invited to attend their full executive meeting
at the end of October. We will take this opportunity to focus on the approaches
we need to take with our respective governments to separate the sheep
industry from the BSE trade restrictions. We will also discuss other issues
of shared interest like National ID and Scrapie control programs.
The next day took us to "The Hill" where we held a series of
meetings with the Agricultural Staff for Senators Baucas and Enzi as well
as Congressman King. These meetings gave us the opportunity to highlight
the role the Canadian industry plays in the American market and the negative
influence the BSE driven border closure is having on lamb trade.
The next meeting was with staff from the U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Agriculture. This meeting offered some insights in both directions.
The Americans were again surprised at both the level of trade and the
negative effects the border closure is having on the North American sheep
and lamb industry. It really helped to put the issue on the radar screen
for them. We had our first real indication on how carefully the US government
will be moving on writing the new regulations for import of live animals.
The concerns of the American Beef Industry have the administration moving
very carefully on this issue.
The last meeting of the day, and certainly the most important, was with
Bill Hawks the Under Secretary of Marketing and Regulatory Programs for
the USDA. These are the folks who will be writing the new regulations
and it was important to lay our issues out for them and offer some suggestions.
We pointed out that the USDA was allowing the import of veal carcasses
on permit while still requiring lamb meat to be boneless. This did raise
an eyebrow and though it doesn’t represent a large volume of product
it can help to wedge the door open a bit. With any luck we will see some
lamb carcasses move by permit in the next month.
Though there was no definite time line offered on the rule making process
Mr. Hawks reiterated the need for careful consideration on the new rules
and how they will be accepted by the US beef industry. He hinted at a
process that may see live animals moving by March. We pointed out that
this would greatly limit the seasonal supply of Canadian slaughter lambs
to the US plants and asked them to consider an accelerated rule making
process for lambs and other low risk products or to consider allowing
the movement of live lambs under permit while the new rules are being
written.
The success of our mission remains to be seen. We won’t know until
the USDA published the new rules for comment. While we wait for this to
happen we will continue to work with the ASI in addressing this issue.
Their support is imperative as it is the American voice that the American
policy makers will listen to.
Many thanks to the mission participants: André Trepanier - CSF
Vice chair (Quebec), Ian Clark - CSF board (Alberta), John Hemsted - CSF
board (Ontario, chair OSMA), Cathy Lennon - General Manger OSMA and Jay
Lewis – Ontario.
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