The chair of the Alberta Beef Producers says 30 ranches being quarantined after a single case of bovine tuberculosis was found could face additional costs of housing and feeding their livestock as winter sets in, instead of selling the animals.

Bob Lowe says while the one case found on a farm near Jenner in southeastern Alberta is not affecting the industry or the markets, the quarantine is devastating to those producers because if any infected cattle are found, the entire herd has to be destroyed.

Bovine T-B is a reportable disease in Canada and has been subject to a mandatory national eradication program since 1923.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says its veterinarians and inspectors are making contact with cattle producers in five Alberta agricultural zones and are working with provincial authorities to investigate the report.