North American Cattle Groups Work to Prevent Disease

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Executive Director, Kent Baucus recently attended the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association annual meeting. He says it is an important meeting for him to attend.

“Canada's a major trading partner for us. And so we try to maintain a good relationship. We are competitors. But we also find that we have a lot of similar views, a lot of the domestic issues that we've faced.”

Among the common concern for both countries is the threat of animal disease and both the US and Canada are taking steps to prevent Foot and Mouth Disease.

“Because if you don't have healthy cattle, you don't have a market. There's really no need for anything else. And so, you know, there's the growing threat of Foot and Mouth Disease as it continues to spread across Asia, across South America, Africa. We're really concerned about being able to protect North America and protect our borders and protect our herds. So the Canadians have kind of followed suit on one of the most important things and that is establishing a vaccine bank and some preparedness plan in the event of foot and mouth disease occurring.”

In addition, CCA and NCBA are both advocating for proper forest management with grazing to prevent wildfires. They're also looking at what cell-cultured meat entering the protein market looks like, along with a plethora of other issues.