Restoring consumer confidence

Related tags Mad cow disease Bovine spongiform encephalopathy Meat Beef United states

US agriculture secretary Ann Veneman has announced a series of
e-Government initiatives in response to public fears over beef. In
a recent Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive Health-Care
Poll, over one in five American adults - 21 per cent - said that
fear of mad cow disease is likely to change their eating habits.

The government is confident, however, that it can convince the public of the safety of US beef.

"E-Government is an important part of President Bush's management agenda to improve the operations of government,"​ Veneman said during remarks via satellite to the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual meeting.

"USDA's e-Government initiatives will standardise processes and provide tools to unleash the fuller potential of information technology. Our goal is to operate more efficiently in order to be more responsive to the needs of American agriculture and consumers."

Veneman said that from this week, visitors to the USDA website​ would begin to see a new design, which is the first phase in efforts to make the website a more powerful and improve access to USDA information and science.

It remains to be seen, however, whether greater governmental transparency will convince the public that beef is safe to eat. According to the Harris poll, 78 per cent of those questioned said that they would eat less beef while 16 per cent indicated that they will stop eating beef altogether.

"If the people who believe they will eat less beef actually do so, beef sales will take a serious short-term hit, and sales of poultry, lamb, pork and fish will rise,"​ said Humphrey Taylor, chairman of The Harris Poll at Harris Interactive​. "However, if no further cases of mad cow disease are reported, eating habits are likely to return to what they were before very long."

Indeed, there was some good news for the government contained in the findings. A sizeable majority - 88 per cent - said that they had confidence that the government would take necessary steps to avoid the spread of mad cow disease in the United States. Some 45 per cent said that they had a great deal of confidence, while 43 per cent said that they had some confidence.

Restoring consumer reassurance has been at the heart of the FAO's agenda as well. "When it comes to prevention, the situation is still confused,"​ the organisation said in a statement. "To reassure consumers will require more than the minimum action to be taken by countries. It will require better controls and more surveillance and testing."

The FAO​ highlighted measures being taken in Europe to reassure consumers. The EU tested over 9 million animals in 2002/3, with France and Germany testing nearly 3 million each.

Testing costs are estimated at around $50 per animal. Considering the potential damage of BSE outbreaks to human health and meat markets, testing can be considered cost-effective, FAO said.

However, the organisation still believes that BSE controls are not sufficient in many countries and that many states are not applying the recommended measures properly. Indeed, the organisation said that no country can claim to be BSE-free, unless this claim is validated through internationally recognised survey methods.

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