01/19/05 Washington cattleman on Canadian trip

Washington Ag January 19, 2005 The immediate past president of the Washington Cattlemen's Association, Sid Viebrock, is part of an eight member National Cattlemen's Beef Association trade team that is in Canada this week on a BSE fact-finding mission to address NCBA member concerns before the U.S. resumes cattle trade with Canada. NCBA International Markets Committee chair and team leader, Jamie Willrett of Illinois, highlights some of what the U.S. producers will be doing. Willrett: ".We'll be visiting with Doctor Brian Evans from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency regarding the feed ban, surveillance, assurances to the regulations that are in place. We will be visiting feedyards, doing a fly over of feedyards taking a look at actual physical inventory. We will be visiting a processing plant looking at SRM removal and we will also be visiting a couple of feed mills and taking look at the feed processing industry and how they adhere to that feed ban." Willrett says the team will report its findings to NCBA officers and the executive committee later this week. Washington State University is receiving a 100-thousand dollar grant from the Department of Ecology to finish building an anaerobic digester that will convert farm waste to electricity. The digester will be transported around the state to demonstrate how the technology can generate power while helping to solve solid-waste disposal problems. I'm Bob Hoff.