NCBA Wants Halt To S. Korean
Beef Imports As Retaliation
WASHINGTON —(AP)— Cattle ranchers want the U.S. government to halt beef trade with South Korea because the country is blocking shipments from a meatpacker in the state of Kansas.
In a letter to the Bush administration on Friday, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association said, ``It is clear that commercially viable beef trade can't take place with South Korea.''
The group's president, Missouri rancher Mike John, said trade should not resume without assurance from South Korea that it will follow agreed-upon rules for trade.
Recently, South Korea suspended imports from Creekstone Farms Premium Beef because authorities said they found a bone fragment in boneless beef. Creekstone raises Black Angus cattle in Kentucky and slaughters them in Kansas. South Korea banned shipments from another processor last week, also citing bone chips.
American beef shipments had resumed only recently, after lengthy negotiations with South Korea, which banned U.S. beef after the discovery of “mad cow” disease in 2003 in Washington state.
The Agriculture Department intends to keep negotiating, a spokeswoman said.
``It is our intention to continue to work with South Korea in an effort to establish reasonable standards and tolerances for the trading of beef, just as we have done with so many of our trading partners,'' said Agriculture Department spokeswoman Terri Teuber.
The country was a major buyer of U.S. beef, purchasing more than $1.2 billion in beef products in the year before the ban, according to the Agriculture Department. Only Japan was a bigger market, worth $1.4 billion annually until closing its market due to mad cow disease.
Both countries have agreed to accept only boneless beef from the United States because some Asian countries consider bone to carry a greater risk for mad cow disease. That is stricter than international rules, which deem many bone-in cuts of beef to be safe.
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns has harshly criticized South Korea, arguing that officials there had ``invented'' a standard for imports.
``They have applied a standard we did not agree to. It was a standard that they invented along the way,'' Johanns said Tuesday in Washington.
He said the shipment was seven tons of beef and that the bone fragment was actually a small piece of cartilage.
Beef Imports As Retaliation
WASHINGTON —(AP)— Cattle ranchers want the U.S. government to halt beef trade with South Korea because the country is blocking shipments from a meatpacker in the state of Kansas.
In a letter to the Bush administration on Friday, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association said, ``It is clear that commercially viable beef trade can't take place with South Korea.''
The group's president, Missouri rancher Mike John, said trade should not resume without assurance from South Korea that it will follow agreed-upon rules for trade.
Recently, South Korea suspended imports from Creekstone Farms Premium Beef because authorities said they found a bone fragment in boneless beef. Creekstone raises Black Angus cattle in Kentucky and slaughters them in Kansas. South Korea banned shipments from another processor last week, also citing bone chips.
American beef shipments had resumed only recently, after lengthy negotiations with South Korea, which banned U.S. beef after the discovery of “mad cow” disease in 2003 in Washington state.
The Agriculture Department intends to keep negotiating, a spokeswoman said.
``It is our intention to continue to work with South Korea in an effort to establish reasonable standards and tolerances for the trading of beef, just as we have done with so many of our trading partners,'' said Agriculture Department spokeswoman Terri Teuber.
The country was a major buyer of U.S. beef, purchasing more than $1.2 billion in beef products in the year before the ban, according to the Agriculture Department. Only Japan was a bigger market, worth $1.4 billion annually until closing its market due to mad cow disease.
Both countries have agreed to accept only boneless beef from the United States because some Asian countries consider bone to carry a greater risk for mad cow disease. That is stricter than international rules, which deem many bone-in cuts of beef to be safe.
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns has harshly criticized South Korea, arguing that officials there had ``invented'' a standard for imports.
``They have applied a standard we did not agree to. It was a standard that they invented along the way,'' Johanns said Tuesday in Washington.
He said the shipment was seven tons of beef and that the bone fragment was actually a small piece of cartilage.