10/02/07 Trying to lessen impact of over 30 month rule

Washington Ag October 2, 2007 USDA's rule that will take effect November 19th allowing any Canadian cattle to be imported into the U.S. that were born after March 1st of 1999, was a major topic of discussion at last week's Fall Roundup of the Cattle Producers of Washington. Wishon: "This year we have endured the drought situation, high feed costs. It is going to be a challenge for producers to be able to come in off their ranges get their pregging done and market their open cattle and do it in a profitable manner. It is going to make it tougher to hold any cattle over to out wait the border issues or the surge that we may see." That's CPoW President Ted Wishon describing how the timing of the implementation of USDA's rule will impact northwest cattlemen. Wishon was encouraged however by some of the ideas discussed at the Fall Roundup. Mike Poulson of Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers office said a letter is being sent to USDA requesting it to move the rule implementation date a few months down the road when it would have less market impact. Poulson says that is still a possibility. Cattlemen say just the announcement alone of the USDA rule took a dime a pound off of the price of cull cows. I'm Bob Hoff.