The Japanese food industry is starting to realize how badly it has been hit by the effects of a ban placed on imports of U.S. beef nearly a year ago following the detection of cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, in the United States.

Hardest hit were restaurants serving beef dishes such as gyudon, a bowl of rice with seasoned beef, since U.S. supplies accounted for about one-third of domestic beef consumption.

Although the Japanese and U.S. governments are negotiating to resume beef imports, the outcome looks unpromising.

Some restaurants have switched, or are switching, to supplies from Australia and other beef-producing countries, which further dim prospects for U.S. beef to reenter the domestic market.
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After the nation’s first case of mad cow disease was discovered, government regulators and industry officials worked quickly to reassure consumers it was safe to eat a steak. A year later, you’d never guess there was any concern at all – the nation’s appetite for beef has remained strong.

But consumer advocates say there’s a problem with that lack of reaction from the public – it might have diminished the impact of the mad cow case on improving food safety. Aside from several steps taken shortly after a single cow in Washington state was found infected with the disease, reforms that were promised remain unfulfilled.

Federal regulators, trying to reassure U.S. consumers, promised to strengthen the country’s food safety rules. For the most part, it didn’t happen, said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the Center of Science in the Public Interest.
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After the nation’s first case of mad cow disease was discovered, government regulators and industry officials worked quickly to reassure consumers it was safe to eat a steak. A year later, you would never guess there was any concern at all - the nation’s appetite for beef has remained strong.

But consumer advocates say there’s a problem with that lack of reaction from the public - it might have diminished the impact of the mad-cow case on improving food safety. Aside from several steps taken shortly after a single cow in Washington state was found to be infected with the disease, reforms that were promised remain unfulfilled.

Federal regulators, trying to reassure U.S. consumers, promised to strengthen the country’s food-safety rules. For the most part, it didn’t happen, said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the Center of Science in the Public Interest.

“Consumers didn’t react very much, so (regulators) don’t feel the need to take action, and I think that is unfortunate,” Smith DeWaal said.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Delegation Members Says U.S. Beef Is Safe, Offer Information to Help Reestablish Trade

A delegation of U.S. beef industry leaders made an unprecedented trip to Tokyo, Japan this week to meet with government and industry leaders in hopes that additional information and assurances can speed the reestablishment of beef trade between the United States and Japan.

Swift & Co., Inc. Accompanying these executives on the trip are J. Patrick Boyle, president and CEO, American Meat Institute; Philip M. Seng, president and CEO, U.S. Meat Export Federation and Terry Stokes, CEO, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

“We are honored to be in Japan to offer our personal assurances that we are taking extensive efforts to ensure that U.S. cattle and beef are among the safest in the world,� Boyle said. “More than a decade before we detected our first and only case, the U.S. was more proactive than any other nation in building firewalls to prevent BSE, and to detect it if it did exist. Our response to a single case in an imported animal exceeded international standards. We believe we have earned the trust of the Japanese government, our customers and the Japanese consumer.�

In October, the U.S. and Japan agreed to an official framework for restarting trade. This industry delegation has come to Japan to inquire about the status of the agreement’s implementation and to respond to questions and concerns in hope that the effort will speed implementation.

In meetings with Japanese officials, the delegation stressed the following points:

The U.S. response to a single case of BSE exceeds what is required under international guidelines set by the Office of International Epizootics (OIE).

Under OIE guidelines, the U.S. is considered “provisionally free� of BSE. In another year after feed controls have been in place for a full eight years, the U.S. will be classified BSE-free.

The United States had prepared for a case of BSE more than a decade before one was actually detected. The U.S. triple firewall strategy of import controls, cattle feed restrictions and aggressive surveillance has worked effectively to prevent the disease in cattle and to maintain a safe beef supply.

Since June 2004, nearly 150,000 tests have been done on cattle classified “higher risk� and all have been negative. This is more than half the planned number of tests for the enhanced surveillance program. This testing program was designed by scientific experts to detect BSE at a level of one in ten million with a 99 percent confidence rate. The United States has a 100-million head cattle herd.

Members of the delegation also told officials that they were encouraged that Japan was changing its requirement that all cattle be tested for BSE, because leading experts say BSE cannot be detected in animals under 30 months of age. These experts also say that removing any material that can pose a risk (“specified risk materials� or SRMs) is the best way to ensure beef safety.

“Removing any material that may pose a risk is required by law and overseen by federal inspectors, who are in beef plants at all times,â€? Boyle noted. “It is important to remember that our aggressive surveillance system has detected just one case. Experts in risk assessment at Harvard University studied our system and say that the risk a single case of BSE poses is so low it can scarcely be quantified.”

JAPAN - No end is in sight to Japan’s ban on imports of a U.S. beef, the head of a U.S. beef industry delegation said on Tuesday after a two-day visit to Japan aimed at speeding efforts to ease the ban.

Japan was the top foreign market for U.S. beef until it suspended imports after the discovery of a case of mad cow disease in Washington State a year ago. The move halted trade worth roughly $1.4 billion a year.

After months of talks, Tokyo and Washington agreed in October that Japan would resume imports of U.S. beef from cattle aged 20 months or younger, but no agreement has been reached on details such as how to confirm an animal’s age.

Patrick Boyle, president and CEO of the American Meat Institute, told reporters the aim of the visit was to ask about implementation of the October agreement and respond to questions and concerns to help speed its implementation.
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SUNNYSIDE, Wash. – Sergio Madrigal watched in despair as federal officials hauled away his 449 calves to be killed after the nation’s first case of mad cow disease was discovered in a nearby dairy cow. A year later, Madrigal looks out at his rebuilt herd and smiles - just one of many signs that American ranchers suffered few long-term ill effects from the cow that ruined Christmas 2003.

Beef prices are high, and so are spirits.

“I’m at another level now,” Madrigal said in Spanish through a translator, as he sat in his kitchen after tending his herd now numbered at more than 500 calves.

But what a year it’s been for the country’s $44 billion cattle industry.
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Weeks of fear and uncertainty followed the announcement last Dec. 23 that the nation’s first case of mad cow disease had been found in a Mabton, Wash., dairy cow.

More than 60 countries closed their borders to U.S. beef products - everything from live cattle and cuts of beef to pet food and frozen potatoes prefried in beef fat.

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced sweeping regulatory changes intended to bolster confidence among consumers and trading partners. She also increased the number of cattle to be tested to determine the prevalence of the disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.

Federal authorities killed more than 700 cattle in three states as a precaution, including Madrigal’s calves. One calf in the herd had been born to the infected cow weeks earlier but was not tagged and could not be identified, so the entire herd was killed.

Many of the calves were just one week shy of being sold.

“Before that, I was thinking I was going to have a nice Christmas. After that, I spent nights awake,” Madrigal said. “It was the first time to ever have that situation in the United States, and I didn’t know what to expect.”

Madrigal, 35, said the Agriculture Department paid him fair market value for the calves in January before shipping them offsite to be killed. It took him five months and hundreds of miles in travel to fully rebuild the herd, but he learned valuable lessons.

“Now I keep control of what I’m being sold. I receive a number for each cow, and I make sure all have ear tags. Everything else is the same - the hard work is the same,” he said with a smile.

Already, his herd is larger than it was before mad cow disease was discovered down the road. And U.S. consumers barely missed a beat following the discovery.

Cattle prices were at a record high last fall before the mad cow announcement, at 97 cents per pound, up from the 2002 average of 67 cents per pound. They remain high now at about 85 cents per pound.

That was “reassuring,” said Jan Lyons, president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, an industry group representing cattlemen, processors and meat packers. “Before the BSE event on Dec. 23, we really had no way of gauging what might happen. Now, we have a historical perspective.”

From the time the disease was discovered in Britain in the 1980s, the United States had taken steps to prepare in case it was ever discovered here, said Beth Johnson, special assistant to Veneman.

“We are not going to stop,” she said. “It’s our key priority to make sure we continue to stay on top of this disease, as well as other animal diseases, to make sure we are protecting the public and the cattlemen.”

The Agriculture Department accelerated plans to create an electronic identification program geared at tracing an animal within 48 hours in the event of a disease outbreak. Many states are developing pilot programs to determine how the national program should eventually work.

And since the agency ratcheted up its testing program June 1, more than 140,000 cattle have been tested for the disease - as compared with roughly 20,000 cattle tested in each of the previous two years.

The program targets those cattle considered at high-risk for the disease: adult cattle unable to walk on their own, showing signs of a central nervous disorder or dead on the farm of suspect causes. That number has been estimated at more than 440,000 of the nation’s roughly 35 million cattle sent to slaughter.

The cost to respond to the lone infected cow, which was later traced to Canada, already has topped $31 million, but will go higher as the federal government continues surveillance and develops the animal identification program.

The cost has been great to the industry as well, said Greg Doud, chief economist for the cattlemen’s association. Doud estimated the added regulations and changes have cost the industry between $300 million and $400 million.

Additionally, while about one-third of the industry’s $3.8 billion trade markets have been restored, bans on cattle or products remain in place in more than 50 countries, making trade a key issue in the year ahead. The United States exports about 10 percent of its beef.

“In times of low supply, we can absorb that. But trade will become more and more of an issue as supply picks up,” Lyons said.

Supply is sure to pick up if the United States reopens the border to live cattle from Canada, whose industry has suffered greatly following the discovery of mad cow disease there in May 2003. The federal government is considering a plan to reopen that border.

Meanwhile, the United States has to work not only to regain trade markets that were lost to other countries, but also customers that were lost to other products, she said.

“The competition is coming from other beef producing countries, like Australia and New Zealand, but also from other protein products, like pork,” she said. “The trade teams have been very aggressive and have shown some progress, but we still have a ways to go.”

U.S. and Japan to Review Beef Cattle Test Methods for prevention of BSE in cattles

Dec. 17 – Japanese and U.S. agriculture officials are in talks in Tokyo to review ways to confirm the age of beef cattle apart from tests for mad cow disease before a partial resumption of beef trade.

The talks follow Japanese missions to the U.S. and Canada from Nov. 29 and Dec. 3. Results of the meetings, closed to the public and the media, will be released on Dec. 20, Tatsumi Okura, a food safety official at the Agriculture Ministry in Tokyo, said.

“We are simply exchanging our views on mad cow safeguards with U.S. officials and age verification methods,'’ Okura said. Japanese and U.S. officials agreed in October to review policies by year end on testing beef cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, and on ways to confirm the age of cattle, Okura said.

Japan’s ban on U.S. beef followed discovery of a case of mad cow in Washington state. Japan bought $1.7 billion of U.S. beef in 2003 before the ban.

BSE has been linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a brain-wasting illness blamed for at least 139 deaths in the U.K.

Cattle market upswing may be targetted by cargill

At the end of November there was another BSE scare for American cattle farmers. The country and the media were quick to presume that this was another case that could cripple the industry, but they both turned out to be wrong.

The cattle industry works on a 10-year cycle, and the Fort Morgan Cargill Meat Solutions (formerly Excel) plant is a prime example of that.

The plant was forced to lay off 150 employees and cut the hours of those remaining by four to eight hours per week last January, and although, since then, all those people have had a chance to get a job with the plant, very few of the actual positions have been recreated and the hours remain the same.

There are a couple of factors that are pressuring the industry.

“The presumptive positive and the negative test results were additional factors that added to the volatility,” Mark Klein, director of communications for Cargill Meat Solutions, said. “Overall the primary factor, however, remains the low availability of market-ready cattle.”

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