March 23, 2007

USDA: Japan's call to bar Tyson plant's beef is unfair

Japan's request that the US remove a Tyson Food Inc beef-packing plant in Nebraska from a list of eligible facilities that can export to Japan is an unfair response to a problem discovered with one shipment, US Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Thursday (Mar 22).

Johanns praised the Tyson plant in Lexington, Nebraska, and said he had submitted a report on it to Japan. He called on the country to exercise "common sense" when it comes to beef imports.

Japanese inspectors announced in February that they had discovered two boxes of boneless short ribs in a Tyson shipment that was improperly labelled. US beef shipment to Japan must be verified as derived from cattle under 21 months old. The two boxes of short ribs were labelled as coming from cattle under 30 months old.

Gary Michaelson, a Tyson spokesman, said last month that the two boxes had been mistakenly included in the shipment to Japan.

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

Bush administration officials agreed to the cattle age regulation in order to get Japan to ease its ban on US beef last year, but USDA's Johanns has said recently it is time for the restriction to be removed.

Japan originally banned US beef in December 2003, after the US found its first BSE case. Before that discovery, Japan was the largest foreign market for US beef. The US exported US$1.4 billion worth of beef to Japan in 2003.