Beef exports ride on a double standard - Monday, Jan. 19, 2004
SUMMARY: Let's hope Japan, largest foreign buyer of U.S. beef, proves more open-minded than America.
Key to prosperity for Montana's massive livestock industry is a speedy resumption of beef exports, which pretty much shut down following discovery, last month, of a Holstein in Washington infected with mad cow disease. Although 90 percent of the beef produced in America is consumed within our shores, the 10 percent that's exported is important. Exports not only generate $3 billion annually, but they also use up some of our nation's excess capacity to produce beef. Without exports, there'll be a glut of beef competing for a spot on your dinner table. Beef eaters might find some bargains at the butcher's, but beef producers would see profits plummet.
"It is difficult to overstate the danger that the loss of these markets poses to an industry worth $175 billion," Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., wrote, along with Republican colleague Larry Craig of Idaho, in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman.
Some 43 countries banned U.S. beef immediately after the case of mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE. Of those countries, by far the most important is Japan. It's the world's largest importer of U.S. beef, buying about $1 billion a year worth of it.
The challenge of persuading the Japanese to lift their ban is twofold. American producers must convince Japan that U.S. meat-safety standards are adequate. And they also have to sell the Japanese on a double-standard. Indeed, while U.S. officials lobby Japan to lift its beef ban, the United States continues to ban imports of Japanese beef. Japan never exported very much beef to the United States - or anywhere. But now, the United States allows none.
Japan had a case of mad cow disease in 2001. Japanese consumers reacted harshly. Beef consumption there dropped dramatically and hasn't recovered. To calm public fears, ensure meat safety and save their domestic beef industry, Japan instituted the world's strictest testing requirements. Every cow slaughtered for human consumption in Japan is tested for BSE, and the results are checked before the meat is processed. By contrast, just 20,526 of nearly 36 million cattle slaughtered in the United States last year were tested for the disease. And, as we learned last month, the results of U.S. testing for BSE isn't available for weeks, long after the meat goes to market.
With the United States saying - by maintaining the ban on Japanese beef - that Japan's safeguards remain insufficient, American beef producers may find Japan skeptical of U.S. safeguards. Indeed, the newspaper Asahi Shimbun, in its English version, noted the other day, "It is Š difficult for the United States, whose tests are not nearly as comprehensive, to push Japan to resume imports of U.S. beef."
Difficult? Perhaps impossible. "Japan's demands on testing are very reasonable," Asahi Shimbun declared in an editorial last week. "Japan tests every cow for BSE before the animal is slaughtered and insists it will not lift the ban on American beef unless the United States takes the same step for all cattle processed for export to Japan."
"If it's safe enough for you and me," the head of the Montana Stockgrowers Association told one of our reporters in Helena earlier this month, "it should be safe enough for our export partners." Perhaps so. But let's not be surprised if reopening export markets proves more difficult than telling foreign consumers, "It's safe enough for us."
SUMMARY: Let's hope Japan, largest foreign buyer of U.S. beef, proves more open-minded than America.
Key to prosperity for Montana's massive livestock industry is a speedy resumption of beef exports, which pretty much shut down following discovery, last month, of a Holstein in Washington infected with mad cow disease. Although 90 percent of the beef produced in America is consumed within our shores, the 10 percent that's exported is important. Exports not only generate $3 billion annually, but they also use up some of our nation's excess capacity to produce beef. Without exports, there'll be a glut of beef competing for a spot on your dinner table. Beef eaters might find some bargains at the butcher's, but beef producers would see profits plummet.
"It is difficult to overstate the danger that the loss of these markets poses to an industry worth $175 billion," Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., wrote, along with Republican colleague Larry Craig of Idaho, in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman.
Some 43 countries banned U.S. beef immediately after the case of mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE. Of those countries, by far the most important is Japan. It's the world's largest importer of U.S. beef, buying about $1 billion a year worth of it.
The challenge of persuading the Japanese to lift their ban is twofold. American producers must convince Japan that U.S. meat-safety standards are adequate. And they also have to sell the Japanese on a double-standard. Indeed, while U.S. officials lobby Japan to lift its beef ban, the United States continues to ban imports of Japanese beef. Japan never exported very much beef to the United States - or anywhere. But now, the United States allows none.
Japan had a case of mad cow disease in 2001. Japanese consumers reacted harshly. Beef consumption there dropped dramatically and hasn't recovered. To calm public fears, ensure meat safety and save their domestic beef industry, Japan instituted the world's strictest testing requirements. Every cow slaughtered for human consumption in Japan is tested for BSE, and the results are checked before the meat is processed. By contrast, just 20,526 of nearly 36 million cattle slaughtered in the United States last year were tested for the disease. And, as we learned last month, the results of U.S. testing for BSE isn't available for weeks, long after the meat goes to market.
With the United States saying - by maintaining the ban on Japanese beef - that Japan's safeguards remain insufficient, American beef producers may find Japan skeptical of U.S. safeguards. Indeed, the newspaper Asahi Shimbun, in its English version, noted the other day, "It is Š difficult for the United States, whose tests are not nearly as comprehensive, to push Japan to resume imports of U.S. beef."
Difficult? Perhaps impossible. "Japan's demands on testing are very reasonable," Asahi Shimbun declared in an editorial last week. "Japan tests every cow for BSE before the animal is slaughtered and insists it will not lift the ban on American beef unless the United States takes the same step for all cattle processed for export to Japan."
"If it's safe enough for you and me," the head of the Montana Stockgrowers Association told one of our reporters in Helena earlier this month, "it should be safe enough for our export partners." Perhaps so. But let's not be surprised if reopening export markets proves more difficult than telling foreign consumers, "It's safe enough for us."