December 26, 2003

 

 

US Beef Slips Into Korea Without Proper Testing

 

Despite mounting fears over a potential mad cow disease outbreak in Korea, U.S. beef has slipped into the country without proper testing for the disease, a government official said yesterday.

 

In addition, since there is no requirement for country-of-origin labeling in Korea, experts fear local beef may be misrepresented as US imports.

 

"We need to inspect each cow's brain tissue to discover mad cow disease to know whether the beef from the United States is infected or not. But we have followed the convention of not testing any imported beef for mad cow disease," an Agriculture Ministry official said.

 

"What we do is just check the cow-growing and processing system in the import markets."

 

Accordingly, some U.S. beef in Korea may carry the fatal disease, he explained.

 

Korea currently has only one regulation regarding imports of cow meat and its byproducts - an exporter should have no record of an outbreak of mad cow disease during the past five years.

 

Meanwhile, the Agriculture Ministry said the beef supply in Korea is sufficient for now, but that shortages could occur if the government decides to ban beef products entirely from the United States. Currently, there is only a partial ban.

 

A ministry official said Korea currently had 110,000 tons on hand. Industry experts said the stockpile was enough for four months, but could last longer if consumption declined.

 

Korea, which buys more than 60% of its beef from the United States, halted customs inspections, quarantined American beef products in warehouses and prohibited the sale of U.S. beef already in stores. The measures are to last indefinitely, raising the possibility of rising beef prices.

 

"As the disease-carrying agent is still unknown, there have been no international regulations regarding when to lift the ban on exports and imports of beef products from mad cow infected nations," said Kim Chang-sup, a quarantine official at the Agriculture Ministry.

 

Beef retailers in Korea, including discount store chains and department stores, removed U.S. beef from their shelves and halted beef orders from America. Lotte Mart, a discount store franchise, rushed to order 40 tons of beef from Australia and expanded the volume of pork and sea products for sale.

 

Australia and New Zealand are now the last remaining major beef exporters with access to the domestic market.

 

"If the mad cow alert lasts more than a week, the prices of alternative meat products will pick up as well," said a meat industry official.

 

Besides seafood, a local shopping option is hanwu, a breed of cattle indigenous to Korea. Its meat is thought to be superior to imported beef but is twice the price.

 

Last year, imported beef accounted for 63.4% of Korea's entire beef consumption of 457,700 tons. U.S. beef, about 64% of the 2002 imports, cost $656 million.

 

In the first 11 months of this year, the portion of U.S. beef imports rose to 68.2%, or 187,300 tons.