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ND Official Urges USDA to Give Customers What They Want
USAgNet - 02/06/2006
Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson is urging the federal government to rethink its strategy for regaining the market for U.S. beef in Japan.
"I have asked U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns to let U.S. packers voluntarily test all beef they export to Japan for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)," Johnson said Friday. "Our best hope for regaining our beef markets in Japan is to give the customers what they want."
Johnson said U.S. policy has failed because USDA has treated the matter as a public health issue, not a marketing issue.
"USDA's approach of continually browbeating the Japanese government into taking a product which is viewed with suspicion by the Japanese consumers has now resulted in even further erosion of Japanese consumer confidence in U.S. beef," Johnson told Johanns. "Let's give our customers what they want. That has always been the key to success in any business."
Johnson said that in his opinion U.S. beef is the safest in the world, and that Japanese consumers will eventually come to that conclusion too.
"As we restore Japanese consumer confidence, they will eventually quit offering to pay any premium associated with 100 percent testing, and our U.S. beef exporters will have that market back because we will have demonstrated to their satisfaction that our product is safe," he said.
Several U.S. packing companies, including Kansas-based Creekstone Farms, have sought to regain the Japanese market by offering beef that is 100 percent tested for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), but USDA has refused to allow the expanded testing on the grounds that such testing would have a negligible public heath benefit.
ND Official Urges USDA to Give Customers What They Want
USAgNet - 02/06/2006
Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson is urging the federal government to rethink its strategy for regaining the market for U.S. beef in Japan.
"I have asked U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns to let U.S. packers voluntarily test all beef they export to Japan for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)," Johnson said Friday. "Our best hope for regaining our beef markets in Japan is to give the customers what they want."
Johnson said U.S. policy has failed because USDA has treated the matter as a public health issue, not a marketing issue.
"USDA's approach of continually browbeating the Japanese government into taking a product which is viewed with suspicion by the Japanese consumers has now resulted in even further erosion of Japanese consumer confidence in U.S. beef," Johnson told Johanns. "Let's give our customers what they want. That has always been the key to success in any business."
Johnson said that in his opinion U.S. beef is the safest in the world, and that Japanese consumers will eventually come to that conclusion too.
"As we restore Japanese consumer confidence, they will eventually quit offering to pay any premium associated with 100 percent testing, and our U.S. beef exporters will have that market back because we will have demonstrated to their satisfaction that our product is safe," he said.
Several U.S. packing companies, including Kansas-based Creekstone Farms, have sought to regain the Japanese market by offering beef that is 100 percent tested for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), but USDA has refused to allow the expanded testing on the grounds that such testing would have a negligible public heath benefit.
