APHIS Finalizes Bovine Live Import Regulations

On Friday USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced the final rule for modernizing their import regulations for BSE and complying with international accepted scientific standards -- which means no keeping cattle and cattle products out of the U.S. just because that country has had BSE. So would mean the U.S. livestock and meat import policy on what the real risk factors really are not on other considerations as USDA Chief Veterinarian Dr. John Clifford explains

Clifford: "It will allow that safe movement of animals and animals products under this. So it will do this for countries that have been shut out of the U.S. market for some time due to BSE."

And he says it may help our efforts to get other countries to lift their BSE restrictions on our products.

Clifford: "This puts us on a much better footing for those negations."

This announcement has brought both cheers and jeers from national beef organizations. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association commends the announcement as helping to improvement global market access for U.S. beef. However, R-CALF USA opposes the new rule and states the new rule will open the door to supplementing tight U.S. beef supplies with beef of questionable safety from Europe.

Clifford says it is important to note that control of imports is only one of several interlocking safeguards against BSE. This regulation does not change other measures currently in place in our country.