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4/21/2006 6:00:00 AM Email this article • Print this article
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‘Plant by plant’ approval urged

Richard Smith
Freelance Writer

TOKYO — Going against the grain of the U.S. Meat Export Federation and most players in the U.S. beef industry, Creekstone Farms of Arkansas City, Kan., is willing to accept a blanket testing of cattle for BSE if that will reassure Japanese customers.

CEO John Stewart told a meeting of Japan’s main opposition party’s BSE Strategy Headquarters this winter that he believes U.S. beef is safe.

“Frankly speaking, I do not think individual testing is necessary,” Stewart said.

However, “I do not think my customer is always right, but I think my customer is my customer,” he said to assembled Diet (Japanese parliament) members of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Japanese and foreign press.

Creekstone Farms is committed to export its beef to Japan but, Stewart warned, others in the U.S. beef industry are setting their sights on another Asian country.

Stewart pointed out that South Korea is expected to lift its ban on U.S. beef within 45 days. The U.S. will then be able to export to that country beef up to 30 months old, as long as it is deboned.

Such meat is considered safe from BSE according to international standards, but Japan limited imports from the U.S. to beef 20 months old and younger.

Stewart emphasized the average age of cattle at slaughter in the U.S. is 24 months.

“Finding beef 20 months old and younger is difficult and costly,” he said.

After lifting a two-year ban on U.S. beef because of BSE on Dec. 12, Japan closed its doors again on Jan. 20 when parts banned under export to Japan rules were found in a shipment of veal from a small company in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Stewart said U.S. beef exporters have to be very careful with Japan, because they can make a very big investment in the country, and risk seeing everything stop in one day.

“We are bothered by the fact that if one tiny company makes a silly mistake, then everybody loses,” he said.

Part of the problem stems from a policy of blanket approval of beef from all plants in the U.S. at one time, Stewart believes. Such a policy overlooks the varying degrees of capabilities within the industry, he said.

“If every U.S. beef plant were like Creekstone, I would not be with you today,” Stewart said.

Instead of a blanket approval, Stewart proposed Japan adopt a “plant-by-plant” approval system.

Highlights of such a system would be:

• Japan would identify U.S. companies that want to export beef to Japan.

• Those companies would be required to follow each and every export to Japan rule.

• Companies that cannot follow the rules would be forbidden from exporting to Japan.

• If there is any problem in a processing plant, that plant would be delisted.

“The system would raise the bar for the whole industry in the United States,” Stewart said.

Creekstone Farms received visits by two Diet fact-finding teams.

Stewart, accompanied by Creekstone international and ethnic sales vice president Rich Swearingen, planned his trip to Japan upon resumption of trade.

Sticking to the plan despite the renewed ban, he accepted the BSESH’s invitation to talk.

The executives also visited their Japanese customers.

“Our customers are very supportive. They want the market to reopen,” Stewart said.

So does the LDP, the DPJ and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Stewart concluded from talks he had. “But there are procedures,” he said.

However, the daily Nihon Nogyo Shimbun reported Mexican beef is becoming a substitute to U.S. products since an economic partnership agreement between Japan and Mexico, in effect since last April, considerably reduced tariffs on Mexican beef.
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