Sask. livestock producers brace for impact of WHO meat report

Les Johnston runs his fourth generation family farm near Fillmore, Sask. He's downsized in recent years, preparing for retirement, but currently has 160 breeding female cows. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) report on the links between cancer and meat could affect his business and the business of others in the livestock industry.

The report released Monday says that eating processed meat increases the risk of cancer and that red meat may increase the risk of cancer.

• Processed meat can cause colon cancer, World Health Organization says
• 5 things: What the findings on red, processed meat and cancer really mean

"Any attack on your industry, it does bother us, and it is concerning," Johnston said. He added that being a beef farmer can be challenging. "It's disappointing that people want to continually coondemn us."

Demand for beef has already been dropping, according to Sylvain Charlebois, a professor at the University of Guelph Food Institute.

"Thirty, 40 years ago the Canadian diet, or the Western diet, was actually quite simple," Charlebois said. "Nowadays consumers are more interested in different kinds of products coming from all over the world."

Those dietary changes include people looking for alternative sources of protein. Charlebois said if he was a pig or cattle farmer, he would be concerned.

Over time you may actually change the way you eat, change the way you prepare food at home.- Sylvain Charlebois, professor at the University of Guelph

"I would see this as a much larger threat than mad cow, swine flu, even climate change over the long term."

Charlebois said the report from the WHO appears to be sound, and that it could have an impact on what doctors tell their patients when it comes to health.

"Over time you may actually change the way you eat, change the way you prepare food at home."