January 18, 2005

 

 

U.S. Lowers Age Of Cattle For Japan Export

 

The United States has told Japan that it is prepared to restrict beef exports to meat from cattle aged up to about 14 months, in a bid to break a deadlock on the restart of trade, a Japanese daily said on Tuesday.

 

The proposal will be discussed at a meeting between U.S. and Japanese experts in Tokyo on Wednesday, which will be open to the public, the Nihon Kezai Shimbun said.

 

Government officials could not be reached for comment. Japan banned American beef imports after the United States reported its first case of mad cow disease in December 2003, halting trade worth an annual $1.4 billion from the top foreign buyer. After months of protracted talks, Tokyo agreed in October to resume beef imports from cattle aged up to 20 months.

 

However, the two countries have been unable to reconcile their differences on how to judge the age of an animal.

 

The United States, unlike Japan, has no system that records the date of birth for all domestic cattle, making it more difficult to confirm the precise age of an animal.

 

The Japanese daily said the new U.S. proposal was aimed at decreasing the possibility of meat from cattle older than 20 months slipping into the Japanese market.

 

Many Japanese consumers are believed to be skeptical about the safety of U.S. beef.

 

A recent poll conducted by a Japanese newspaper late last year revealed that more than 60 percent of Japanese would avoid eating U.S. beef if imports were restarted.

 

Japan began testing all its cattle for mad cow disease after it found its own first domestic case of the brain-wasting disease in 2001, in a bid to restore consumer confidence in meat safety.

It is currently in the process of adopting a new testing policy that will exclude animals aged 20 months or younger.

 

Younger animals are believed to carry a lower risk of mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a human form of which can be caused by eating contaminated meat. So far, no cases of the Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease have been  reported in Japan.