May 17, 2004

 

 

USDA May End Beef, Poultry Import Ban
 

The United States is making headway in lifting the bans that some of its leading customers have imposed on U.S. beef and poultry exports because of mad cow and bird diseases, Agriculture Department officials said Friday.

 

Next week, China may announce progress toward reducing restrictions on U.S. beef and poultry, and Mexico will announce that it will open its borders to more U.S. poultry, they said.

 

Officials sounded less optimistic about coming talks with Japanese officials.

 

In a wide-ranging news conference, the officials also said the government's plans to increase testing for mad cow disease are on target.

 

China had banned U.S. beef products after the United States announced in December that a Holstein in Washington state had the brain-wasting disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE. China banned poultry imports in February after bird flu was found in Texas and unrelated cases were found in East Coast states.

 

About 50 other nations also have refused to accept U.S. beef and poultry.

 

During next Wednesday's cabinet-level talks of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, China could announce progress toward resuming imports, said J.B. Penn, undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services.

 

The United States has been trying to persuade former importers that U.S. responses to BSE and bird flu comply with international scientific standards on testing and meat safety. Penn said the Chinese are no longer unwilling to consider whether the United States has met the requirements.

 

"I'm optimistic that if we can get these things on a sound-science basis then we are much better off than when they are arbitrary,'' Penn said.

 

Mexico, which had imposed a ban on U.S. poultry because of infectious poultry diseases, will scale its restrictions back sharply to prohibit imports only from Texas, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and California, said Bill Hawks, undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs. Those states had the most recent cases, although USDA says there is no current sign of disease.

 

Mexico has been one of America's leading export markets for poultry - the fourth biggest for chicken and the top market for turkey in 2003. "Next week, we should be back to where we were,'' Hawks said.

 

Penn, who will visit Japan May 24 and 25 for talks on import prohibitions, found comfort in Japan's offer to hold the talks. "All of us are optimistic that if we are sitting across the table and we are discussing issues, that we have some opportunity to make some progress,'' he said. He would not predict what the meetings might produce, but he said the Japanese do not want mad cow to be "a major trade irritant.''

 

Japan insists the United States perform BSE tests on all animals at slaughter, as Japan does. Japan had been America's top-dollar beef importer before the ban, and its refusal to back away from its prohibitions is a sore point with the United States, which accuses Japan of going beyond what makes scientific sense.

 

The government is on target to start its expanded testing program for BSE in June, said Dr. Ron DeHaven, administrator of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

 

After the mad cow case, the United States raised its target from 20,000 cattle to over 200,000. The government should start the expanded tests in June, DeHaven said. He expected to meet the testing target a year after that. "We are ramping up as we speak,'' he said.