February 22, 2007

US unsure on cattle age violation on beef shipment to Japan

A shipment of US beef that arrived in Japan this month may have violated the country's rules that all product come from cattle under 21 months old, but US government officials say they can't know for certain.

US Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Wednesday he has been told some of the beef likely violated Japan's cattle age restriction, but Johanns also stressed the information he is getting is very preliminary and subject to change.

Terri Teuber, a USDA spokeswoman, said USDA verified that the "additional boxes in the shipment" contained beef from cattle under 30 months of age. As to whether the beef met Japan's requirement of coming from cattle under 21 months of age, she said USDA just doesn't know.

Japan, out of concern that older cattle are more likely to be infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease, requires imported US beef be derived from cattle under 21 months old.

Japan announced last week it was shutting down imports from Tyson Food's plant in Lexington, Nebraska, because part of a beef shipment could not be proven to have come from cattle under 21 months old.

Gary Mickelson, a Tyson spokesman, said it was the "inadvertent" inclusion of two boxes containing 95 pounds of boneless short ribs in a shipment that "were not eligible for export to Japan".

Those two boxes, he said, "were from cattle under the age of 30 months but did not meet Japan's requirement for product from beef carcasses under 21 months of age."

US officials are talking to their Japanese counterparts in an effort to keep ramifications of the trade mishap to a minimum.

USDA's Johanns said Wednesday: "We are talking to Japan and we are working with Tyson. We want to make sure that, number one, that it doesn't happen again and, number two, that Japan handles this in a reasonable way. So far so good."