China has suspended all beef imports from Canada after mad cow disease was discovered on an Alberta farm.
The Canadian Cattlemen's Association has confirmed that China – which imports approximately $170 million of Canadian beef annually, making it the industry's third-largest global market – has halted imports of beef from Canada following the discovery of an atypical case of BSE, or mad cow disease, on an Alberta farm.
South Korea, which is worth about $90 million per year to Canada's beef industry, as well as the Philippines, which imports about $13 million in Canadian beef annually, have also suspended imports.
The detection of mad cow disease in December is Canada's first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in six years. Atypical BSE develops spontaneously in about one in every one million cattle. It has been reported six times in the U.S., most recently in 2018, as well as a number of other countries.
Unlike the classic BSE strain, which has been linked to the fatal neurological disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, atypical BSE poses no health risk to humans and is not transmissible.
The Alberta government stated in December when it announced the discovery of the case that it was “not expected to have market impacts.”
The discovery of the atypical case is not expected to negatively affect Canada's status as a “negligible risk'' country for mad cow disease, as determined by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
Canada was awarded that preferential status in May 2021, 18 years after a “mad cow crisis” devastated Canadian agriculture sector. It's estimated that the crisis - which began with the discovery of a single case of typical BSE on an Alberta ranch in 2003 - cost Canada between $4.9 billion and $5.5 billion as international borders slammed shut to Canadian beef products.
Since then, the Canadian beef industry and the Canadian government have worked to diversify and develop new markets for the country's beef. The atypical BSE cow discovered in Alberta last month was euthanized on the farm and did not enter the food or animal feed chain.
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