As of last Friday, Canadian cattle producers have one more export destination for marketing their beef.

The government of Canada announced Taiwan has lifted its temporary ban on Canadian beef, which had been put in place in 2015 as a response to the isolated case of BSE found in Canada. This market re-opening came just over a week after Mexico said it would also fully re-open to Canadian beef.

"The Canadian Cattlemen's Association and Canada Beef have really worked hard at getting these markets back," says Manitoba Beef Producers president Heinz Reimer. "This is great news for producers across Canada, just being able to market some beef back into those places where we typically marketed before."

Prior to the temporary ban, Taiwan was Canada's seventh-largest export market for beef, with exports valued at $12 million annually. In the Mexican market, prior to the market restrictions put in place following the BSE outbreak in 2003, Mexico was one of the top importers of Canadian beef, importing somewhere between $270 million to $290 million of beef per year.

Reimer hopes these renewed market opportunities will provide incentive for cattle producers to expand their herds.

"Our producers are definitely getting greyer all the time, but definitely I've talked to a number of guys and there is some optimism coming back (into the beef industry), especially in the last year or two, and hopefully that can continue," he says.

In a statement, Canadian Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay also welcomed the news about Taiwan, saying this is an excellent opportunity for the Canadian cattle industry to export its high-quality beef to the global marketplace.