08/14/08 FMD Prevention Act

You knew this species just had to be out there somewhere, but sightings were few and far between. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be back in one minute to tell you about the latest encounter. Finding U.S. legislators with common sense and who care about American agriculture other than in election years, takes about as much time as the next Ivory-billed Woodpecker sighting. But, Representatives Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD) and Barbara Cubin (WY) saw a need and introduced The Foot and Mouth Disease Prevention Act of 2008. Three other representatives and Washington State's Cathy McMorris Rodgers co-sponsored the bill. The United States Department of Agriculture is currently considering opening the U.S. protein market to various regions of Argentina even though the USDA has not conducted a disease assessment since 2006 when Argentina had a FMD outbreak. This new bill would prohibit the importing of any Argentine ruminant or swine, plus any meat or product from these species born, raised or slaughtered in Argentina until the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture certified to Congress all regions of Argentina are free of FMD without vaccination. Why the USDA would consider any trade that would harm the U.S. beef industry is a mystery to me. What is even more curious is the fact the USDA just conducted a mock FMD outbreak to show just how devastating the disease could be to U.S. swine, dairy and beef producers  go figure! Thank goodness for commonsense lawmakers actually taking positive action for our producers. I'm Jeff Keane.