October 9, 2009

US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Thursday (Oct 8) he will tell his visiting counterpart from Japan on Friday that beef trade between the two countries needs to improve.

Vilsack is scheduled to meet Friday with Hirotaka Akamatsu, Japan's new agriculture minister. During that discussion Vilsack said he will "express concern about the beef situation," even though it will only be a brief, introductory meeting for the two leaders.

The US is exporting about US$1 billion less beef a year to Japan than it did in 2003, before bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease, was discovered in the US.

Japan banned US beef in December 2003 after the first case of BSE was discovered in the US. It took about three years for trade to resume.

But the BSE-related restrictions Japan placed on imports continues to minimise Japanese purchases from the US.

Vilsack said Thursday that plenty of work has already been done to show Japan that US beef is safe, and he is going to express to Akamatsu "a willingness to work with Japan to try to see if we can do a better job in expanding that market."

The US sold US$383 million worth of beef to Japan in 2008, according to data maintained by the US Meat Export Federation. In 2003, the US exported US$1.391 billion worth of beef to Japan.

Vilsack said he believes Akamatsu "will recognise there needs to be an ongoing quality relationship between our two countries."