Mexican and Canadian ag officials are to meet next month to review the “final details” in protocols aimed at restoring trade in live Canadian cattle.
Coming out of a meeting with Alberto Cárdenas Jimenez, Mexico’s secretary for agriculture and livestock, federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said Tuesday that technical officials from the two countries will meet on this topic during the third week of February.
Mexico resumed imports of Canadian bone-in beef in early 2006. Reuters on Tuesday quoted the Mexican agriculture ministry’s head of international affairs, Victor Villalobos, as saying the country aims to resume imports of dairy cattle under age 30 months as part of a gradual re-opening of the trade.
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Ritz also reported in a release Tuesday that he and Cárdenas agreed technical officials should continue to “work expeditiously” with an eye on resuming normal seed potato trade.
Mexico in early December shut its gates to all imports of Alberta potatoes after two samples from two different potato fields showed the “possible presence” of potato cyst nematode. Thousands of samples collected from across the province have since turned up no PCN.
The two ministers also “committed to move forward in Canada’s willingness to undertake a commodity-based risk assessment approach for the export of poultry products and byproducts from Mexico.”
