For Immediate Release: 
April 29, 2008

CREEKSTONE FARMS EVALUTES ITS OPTIONS AFTER THE DC CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS ISSUES A SPLIT DECISION REVERSING THE DISTRICT COURT’S DECISION THAT CREEKSTONE MAY VOLUNTARILY TEST ITS CATTLE FOR “MAD COW DISEASE”

ARKANSAS CITY, KS (August 29, 2008) – A three judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“DC Circuit”) issued a decision today reversing the decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) does not have legal authority to prevent the use of tests for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (“BSE”) commonly known as “mad cow disease.” On March 29, 2007, U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson issued a decision that the USDA did not have legal authority to prevent Creekstone Farms Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, LLC (“Creekstone”) from voluntarily testing the cattle it slaughters and processes for BSE.

Creekstone Farms CEO Dennis Buhlke said, “Creekstone and its attorneys are now carefully reviewing the DC Circuit’s decision and evaluating our options, including asking the DC Circuit to reconsider the appeal en banc.”

Chief Judge Sentelle issued a dissenting opinion to the majority decision of Circuit Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson and Judith W. Rogers. In his opinion Chief Judge Sentelle concluded:

“It seems that the Department’s fear is that Creekstone’s use of the test kits would enable it to provide buyers with a false assurance that the cattle from which its beef is obtained are free of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. However, as I read the record, all Creekstone hopes to do is assure foreign buyers that the beef is as well-tested as would be the case with beef produced in the home countries of those buyers. I will be interested in learning later whether this interdiction by the Department can survive the arbitrary and capricious test that will govern the district court’s review of that additional count.”

Creekstone Farms, which provides high-quality Black Angus beef to distributors in the United States, Japan, Korea, and Europe, has been attempting for several years to meet its customers' interest in beef from BSE-tested cattle, which they currently can obtain from Asian and European meat processors. USDA has insisted that BSE testing in the United States may only be conducted by facilities under contract to USDA, not by private parties.

USDA currently tests far less than 1% of the cattle slaughtered in the United States for BSE. In 2006, USDA reduced its BSE testing ten-fold, yet it refuses to permit private companies such as Creekstone Farms to supplement the federal testing. BSE has only been detected twice in U.S.-born cattle, and never in cattle born since measures to arrest the spread of BSE were implemented in the U.S. in 1997.