News that Japan soon will end a two-year ban on U.S. beef imports are a hopeful sign for Colorado and other beef-producing states that have lost $3.14 billion in sales because of the embargo.
But it’s not a done deal yet, as Kim Essex, spokeswoman for the Centennial-based National Cattlemen’s Beef Association noted. “We’re pleased,” she said. “It’s the first step in a number of steps that need to happen to normalize trade with Japan. We’re not shipping beef until we’re shipping beef.”
The Japanese market was closed to U.S. beef after mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was found in an animal imported from Canada into Washington state in December 2003.
Last Thursday, Japan’s Food Safety Commission declared North American beef is as safe as Japanese beef in a report to the Health and Agriculture ministries, which would make a final recommendation to the government. The ban could be lifted early this week.
Japan, with yearly imports of $1.2 billion before the embargo, was the largest importer of U.S. beef. Colorado alone has lost an estimated $340 million in sales.
Only beef from cattle younger than 21 months would be allowed into Japan, which began testing every animal in 2002. Initially, Japan wanted all American cattle to be tested as a condition of resuming trade but backed off when its food safety panel ruled that tests weren’t needed for younger animals.
BSE was linked to a rare but fatal human form called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. An outbreak of BSE in the United Kingdom during the 1980s decimated herds there, and about 150 human deaths, mostly in the U.K., were attributed to mad cow disease.
Japan wasn’t alone in its panicky reaction to BSE: In May 2003, acting on emotion rather than science, the U.S. Department of Agriculture banned Canadian beef imports after the disease was found in a cow in Canada. That ban initially was relaxed to allow in processed boneless Canadian beef, and then, this year, live animals.
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., called the Japanese move an “early Christmas present for U.S. beef producers.” We hope it proves to be so.
