June 15, 2010
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Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Saturday (Jun 12) vowed to do the utmost to curb the further spread of foot-and-mouth disease that has ravaged livestock in Miyazaki Prefecture, reports said.
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Kan told local farmers that the government is taking this problem very seriously and will supply resources as well as financial aid to help rehabilitate the region's battered local livestock trade and make every effort to prevent the further spread of the disease.
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The government must find the source of the spread of the disease and bring the catastrophe to an end, local farmers said, adding that it will take several years to rehabilitate the livestock business, and the government had to support the reconstruction.
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Miyazaki Governor Hideo Higashikokubaru said that he wants the state government to bear the responsibility of all the expenses to deal with the disease and to extend full support for the reconstruction of the livestock and other relevant industries.
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The government has already pledged JPY100 billion (US$1.1 billion) in emergency funding for the Miyazaki region to stem the outbreak and support affected farmers.
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The prime minister's trip to the prefecture followed fresh confirmation of livestock infected with the disease in the cities of Miyakonojo, Hyuga and Miyazaki, sources close to the matter said.
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The epidemic threatens to ravage the country's trade in prime marbled beef, considered a delicacy in Japan.
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Miyazaki, on Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu, is one of Japan's top beef producers and sends calves to other cattle-producing regions across the country, including the area that produces the famed Kobe beef brand.
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It remains unknown how foot-and-mouth disease came to Miyazaki Prefecture, home to thousands of small farms that supply the Japanese gourmet beef market. But the epidemic of the disease, which causes sometimes fatal fevers and blisters in livestock but very rarely affects humans, has reached critical levels in the region since it surfaced on April 20.
