No date to resume US beef trade to Japan: USDA

By Miho Yoshikawa

TOKYO (Reuters) – U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary J.B. Penn
said on Tuesday it was premature to talk of a date for resuming
U.S. beef imports after materials banned due to fears of mad
cow disease were found in a shipment.

Penn was speaking at a news conference after talks with
Japanese government officials on issues related to the
discovery of banned spinal material in a U.S. beef cargo on
January 20, which led Tokyo to stop all imports of the meat
from the United States.

“It’s a little premature to talk about a timeframe, but we
do want to move as expeditiously as possible,” Penn said.

He said the United States needed to continue its
investigation into how the incident happened.

“We’re still trying to ascertain facts in some cases,” Penn
said.

At a separate news conference, a Japanese Foreign Ministry
official told reporters that Japan had urged the U.S. side to
find the cause of the problem over the imported material and
prevent it recurring.

The suspension came just a month after Japan lifted a
two-year ban imposed after the discovery of mad cow disease in
the United States in December 2003, which had halted annual
trade worth about $1.4 billion.

Formerly the top U.S. export market, Japan agreed to resume
imports last month but it imposed certain conditions, including
the removal of all risk material that could cause the feared
brain-wasting disease.

Penn said he believed last week’s shipment with the banned
spinal material was an isolated case, as the U.S. plant
involved had only had limited previous experience in
international trade.

The USDA has barred the Brooklyn firm that exported the
shipment from making further exports to Japan.

“(U.S. officials) explained to us that the matter was
caused by human error according to the information currently
available to them,” the Foreign Ministry official said.

INFORMATION WANTED

Senior Japanese government officials have said the United
States must provide an explanation of how the banned spinal
material came to be found in last week’s shipment before it
will allow U.S. beef imports to resume.

Meanwhile, President George W. Bush said on Monday that the
United States will be aggressive in reopening markets to
American beef and assuring foreign buyers that there is no
danger of mad cow disease.

Bush said he wanted to “make sure we’re treated fairly” in
beef exports.

Many countries banned U.S. beef after the discovery of mad
cow disease there in 2003, dealing a heavy blow to the U.S.
beef industry, whose exports used to account for 10 percent of
output.

Experts say Washington must act quickly to re-establish
beef trade with Japan to prevent a possible spillover to
neighbouring countries.

The U.S. Agriculture Department has lobbied furiously to
rebuild billions of dollars in beef trade since 2003 after many
countries halted imports due to mad cow disease, formally known
as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Countries that followed Japan in easing bans on U.S. beef
include South Korea, once the third-largest overseas market,
and Hong Kong, previously the fifth-largest.

Both remain open to U.S. beef imports.

As Washington worked to try to contain the issue, Japan
said on Tuesday it has confirmed that a 64-month-old cow that
died last week in northern Japan had mad cow disease, its 22nd
case.

Many Japanese consumers remain concerned about Variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human version of BSE, which
experts say is caused by eating contaminated beef.

The disease has been blamed for more than 150 deaths
worldwide, including one in Japan.