April 5, 2006

US ready to send beef export checklist to Japan

The US Department of Agriculture may send to Japan as soon as Tuesday night a recently completed new checklist of procedures that US beef plants must adhere to for exporting to Japan, USDA officials said Tuesday (Apr 4).

The checklist--ordered by Japan--is one of a few steps in a process that USDA officials hope will convince Japan to resume importing US beef after the country abruptly halted purchases in January.

USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service and Food Safety and Inspection Service have both already updated their regulations for government meat inspectors and companies that enrolled in the USDA's Export Verification programmes.

The two agencies have already implemented the changes, such as the requirement of dual approval signatures on shipments for export. They became effective for beef exports to Japan Monday even though Japan continues to suspend imports.

Japan halted imports of US beef Jan 20 after discovering prohibited material in a shipment of US veal. That is the type of situation that USDA officials said they want to prevent from happening again.

USDA Under Secretary Charles Lambert said last week that if Japan approves the checklist, US beef producers will then have to undergo new audits by the US government as well as further scrutiny by the Japanese government.

Japan was the largest foreign market for US beef before the first case of "mad cow" disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was discovered in the US in December 2003.

Japan reacted to that discovery by banning US beef for two years and then eased back restrictions in December 2005. It was about a month after that when Japan discovered trade violations and the USDA admitted a private exporter had improperly shipped product containing vertebral column, bone material that is considered by Japan to be at risk for transmitting BSE and is on the country's list of prohibited material in beef.