U.S. Hoping to Resume Beef Shipments to Japan

By John Nolan, Dayton Daily News, Ohio

Mar. 6–PIQUA — The Bush administration hopes to persuade Japan within months to reopen its market to U.S. beef despite some political opposition in that country, government officials told an audience of Ohio farmers Saturday.

Japan –once the world’s biggest customer for U.S. beef –halted all imports of it on Jan. 20, five weeks after having lifted a two-year ban, because of fears of mad cow disease.

U.S. officials say American beef is safe to eat, but Japan said the discovery of bone in a U.S. beef import in January violated Japan’s expectations and could represent a mad-cow risk.

The product Japan found, bone-in veal, is eaten in the United States and is considered safe under international guidelines, an American beef trade organization said.

“We’re hoping we can convince the Japanese consumer that our product is safe. We know it’s safe, but we have to convince them it’s safe,” Beth Johnson, deputy chief of staff for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said at an annual Ohio farm forum sponsored by House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester.

Michael Sommers, a White House special assistant for agricultural trade, said the safety of U.S. beef has become a hot-button political issue in Japan.

“When it becomes a political issue in the country you’re trying to trade with, it becomes an almost impossible issue to deal with,” he told farmers attending the forum at Edison Community College.

Sommers said he hopes Japan resumes receiving U.S. beef within a year.

Sommers, a former Boehner aide who joined the White House staff in 2005, is rejoining Boehner’s staff on Monday as director of policy.

Boehner said he expects hearings to start this year on a new farm bill that would authorize mandatory and discretionary agriculture spending, including research. But he said it may take until early 2008 to obtain passage because of budget deficit concerns and competition for funding. The current farm spending law expires at the end of 2007 but could be extended, he said.

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