You're not going to find a crisis that hits closer to home for me than a beef or pork shortage. For some reason Europe wasn't satisfied with a Mad Cow disease outbreak, so they moved on to bigger and better things. Now an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease is reaching epidemic proportions. FMD is a nasty virus that kills cows, sheep, goats, pigs and roughly any other of the more tasty mammals. It mostly only kills baby animals, because it doesn't like them.
Older animals recover, so long as they can stand the rashes and sores and other cruel symptoms.
Travelers may have their luggage, shoes and even feet sprayed with disinfectants as well as any meat byproducts confiscated. Though the United States has not had a reported case of FMD since 1929, officials are still taking every precaution. Apparently when a country as big as ours bans imports of a food product from an entire continent, they get a little peeved about the lost revenue. EU spokesmen are assuring the world that it is a bad idea to stop buying their stuff over something as silly as a few million dead cows. They are threatening to use World Trade Organization contacts to get the bans lifted.