Fort Worth
Star-Telegram
June 28, 2005
Online at: http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/business/12004164.htm
The good news, particularly for Texas ranchers, is that cattle markets took in stride Monday the discovery of the country's second animal with mad-cow disease.
Contracts for August-delivery live cattle closed at $80.57 per 100 pounds, 70 cents higher than on Friday, when U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns confirmed that a native-born beef cow had contracted the brain-wasting disease known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.
Unfortunately, the Agriculture Department is still trying to trace the cow's origin -- a task made harder because five carcasses and their identifying tags became mixed up after a first test on their severed heads in November.
Even the breed of the animal with BSE is not certain.
John Clifford, the department's chief veterinarian, indicated at a Friday news conference that officials initially thought the animal to have been a Black Angus, but its hide turned out to be have been darkened by manure.
"The cow was listed as an Angus," said Ed Curlett, a department spokesman, speaking Monday. "But this particular animal's owner did not have Angus. It was covered with manure because it was down in the truck [that transported it]. Now we're trying to confirm the actual breed through DNA."
The department confirmed this much:
• The animal was born before a 1997 ban on feed made from other cattle, a practice that British scientists believe spreads BSE.
• It was a beef cow and a downer -- unable to walk. Therefore officials automatically sent it to a rendering plant where samples would be taken for BSE testing.
For months, unconfirmed reports circulated that officials discovered the cow at a Texas pet food plant and that authorities conducted the first test in the state. But Jim Rogers, another department spokesman, said the government won't release the location of the plant or the initial laboratory until the animal's herd of origin is determined.
Industry sources noted that a cow found at a Texas rendering facility could have come from another state.
"We have a genetic sample from the test animal and are taking it to different herds, trying to make a genetic match with progeny or siblings," Rogers said. "That process takes time. Simultaneously, we are tracing it back through paperwork."
Feed rendered from BSE-contaminated cattle is considered to have spread the disease in Europe, prompting a 1997 ban on such ruminant-to-ruminant products. Scientists believe that humans contracted a nearly always fatal variant of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease at that time by eating contaminated beef. More than 150 Europeans, mainly Britons, died.
Meanwhile, cattle buyers proved bullish Monday.
"We closed higher," said John Harrington, a cattle market analyst with DTN, a commodity reporting service, commenting on the day's futures trading. "It's a pretty important way of saying that the market considers the BSE finding to be of little significance.
"The fact is, we've mulled [over the BSE possibility] for two weeks, with people suspecting it was positive. So it was old news by the time it was made formal."
Greg Doud, chief economist with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, attributed gains for both cattle futures and feeder cattle (up 90 cents to $1) to good weekend retail sales of beef and to a lack of rain in the Corn Belt, which could lead to higher feed costs for finishing cattle.
The market reaction surprised Wylie Harris, 31, a fifth-generation cattle raiser with a doctorate from Texas A&M University in rangeland management. But he admits to being wrong before -- when officials discovered the first BSE case in December 2003 in Washington state.
"We really thought the world was going to fall down around our ears," said Wylie, who ranches close to St. Jo, north of Fort Worth near the Oklahoma border. "Instead, prices dipped a little and then went higher than we ever saw before."
But the Texan has hedged his bets against a downturn caused by BSE concerns by finishing his cattle on grass rather than commercial feed. Then he sells carcass quarters to consumers who believe such beef is safer. His beef ends up costing the buyer $5 to $5.50 a pound.
On Friday, Johanns, the agriculture secretary, insisted that effective firewalls kept the downer cow out and the food supply safe.
"The BSE threat to humans in this country is so remote that there's a better chance you'll get hurt crossing the street to get to the grocery store than by the beef you buy in the grocery store," he said.
Still, the department will use a new protocol if the so-called rapid test brings in an inconclusive result for BSE. Investigators will now use two different exams -- the immunohistochemistry and Western Blot -- and then send samples to the world's top lab in Weybridge, England, before waiting weeks or months for the second round of results, Rogers said.