Communication and Culture professors Patrick Feng and Edna Einsiedel were recently awarded nearly $150 000 to study the role of food safety standards in Alberta's beef industry. Their work is part of the $1.38 million TSEs and the social-economic impact in Alberta project, funded by the Alberta Prion Research Institute - a new research program sponsored by the Alberta Ingenuity Fund.

The larger research project will be led by principal investigators Josephine Smart, (Anthropology, University of Calgary) and Ellen Goddard (Department of Rural Economy, University of Alberta). TSEs and the social-economic impact in Alberta will bring together anthropologists, agricultural economists, and communication and technology experts from Alberta and abroad through an examination of the social and economic impact of BSE and related diseases on Albertans. Over its three years, researchers will identify how policy and regulation surrounding BSE affects production and market demand in Canada and major importing countries, and will explore how the public's perceptions of risk and safety affect their behaviour.

This project promises to deliver important contributions to improving best practices for marketing strategies for Alberta meat products and to future policy formation and crisis responses relevant to BSE and other disease outbreaks in Canada.