Panama Reopens Market to Canadian Beef

Panama has lifted restrictions on the import of Canadian breeding cattle and bovine genetics, according to dicovermoosejaw.com.

This marks the removal of the last Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (better know as mad-cow) disease-related restrictions on Canada, and follows the signing of the Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreement on May 14th.  The agreement will eventually allow all Canadian beef to have duty free access to Panama.

In somewhat related news, just last month, the Ministry of Agriculture was investigating the deaths of two cows in Tonosi, hypothesizing that metabolic imbalance or bovine rabies were responsible. Both animals began to present suspicious symptoms at 7 a.m. and died simultaneously six hours later.

Two weeks later, test results reportedly confirmed that although the cows did show systems of nervous system failure, they were intoxicated by hallucinogenic toxic plants that cause vomiting and in these two cows’ cases fatal heart problems.