April 24, 2007

First US beef enters South Korea after three-year ban

After three years of import ban due to concerns of mad cow disease, the nine-tonne US beef shipments have arrived in South Korea on a Monday (April 23) morning flight, the South Korean agriculture ministry said.

The American beef exports, processed at a Kansas slaughterhouse, will undergo  thorough quarantine inspections and go on sale after 15 days, said Lee Sang-kil, the ministry's director-general.

The country used to be the third-largest foreign market for American beef it has shut it doors in December 2003 due to the first US reported case of mad cow disease.

During the FTA talks occurred between two countries early this year, South Korea has agreed to resume US beef imports on a limited basis, accepting only boneless meat only from cattle younger than 30 months as it is believed that some material in bones could be the source of mad cow disease and that younger animals are safer from the syndrome.

However, the resumption of imports had been delayed due to US' failure of meeting measures ensuring meat safety.

American slaughterhouses either did not separate local and foreign beef, or failed to differentiate between tools used to slaughter old and young cattle.

In September, South Korea said the problems were addressed and approved the resumption of imports.

Formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, scientists believe the disease spreads when farmers feed cattle recycled meat and bones from infected animals. It is also believed to be linked to a rare, fatal human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.