040908 Alaska Calls for Open Border for Canadian Cattle

Alberta, Canada - Pressure from Alaska could help get Canadian beef moving across the border to the U.S.

If Washington won't open the border to live Canadian cattle, the Alaska Farm Bureau wants a special exemption so the state can import cattle. The U.S. border has been closed to Canadian cattle since May 2003, when a single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease, was found in Alberta.

Alaska is more dependent on Canadian cattle than most U.S. states, with almost all its breeding stock coming from Canada.

Jane Hamilton, executive director of the Alaska Farm Bureau, says they can't bring American cattle in, either, because Canada won't allow them across the border.

Sending them up to Alaska by barge, at $800 a head, is very expensive.

So she organized a meeting of state officials, industry representatives and Canadian cattle producers.

Hamilton says Alaska will try to convince Washington to open the border between Canada and Alaska on a trial basis.

"We only have one major road and we would be able to keep track of the animals with an ID program," he says.

However, the past president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association isn't optimistic Alaska will get special permission to open the border to Canadian cattle.

Neil Jahnke says he's glad to hear that state officials and the farm bureau will continue to lobby for the re-opening of the U.S. border.

Jahnke believes cattle would be moving south by now if it weren't for the lawsuit launched by the militant farm group, R-CALF.

"[The] USDA says well then if you are going to challenge us we are going to make sure we have a defendable position on each and every one of the issues," he says. "All of the indications that we get out of the U.S. is that this is the big hold up."

Jahnke says pressure from Alaska will likely speed up the process.

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