Japanese bill earmarks US$1.1 billion to control FMD outbreaks

A bill allowing the Japanese government to order widespread culls of livestock in areas affected by foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and allocating about JPY100 billion (US$1.1 billion) to respond to the outbreak cleared a lower house committee Wednesday (May 26).

The Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries voted unanimously to advance the cross-partisan bill put forward by the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the opposition Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito party.

The parties aim to pass the legislation through the lower house and the upper house, making it law. The law's provisions will remain in effect until March 2012.

Under current law on preventing livestock diseases, the government's authority to slaughter animals infected or thought to be infected with FMD extends only to the farms where animals have actually come down with the virus.

But in an effort to contain the current outbreak in Miyazaki Prefecture, the government has decided to vaccinate, and later slaughter, all the cattle and pigs in a 10km radius of the farms where infections have been reported.

The new law will give the agriculture minister free reign to order culls, even in cases where ranchers do not approve.