July 2, 2004

Second Japan-US BSE Meeting Ends, Third Scheduled For July

Japan and U.S. late Wednesday wrapped up the second in a series of three talks on bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease, scheduled this spring and summer, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official said.
 
Associate Administrator for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Peter Fernandez said the U.S. hosted a Japanese delegation June 28-30 in Colorado, where three days of discussions and tours were held. The first round of talks was held in Tokyo May 18-19 and the third is scheduled again in Japan sometime in July.
 
USDA Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agriculture Services J.B. Penn said earlier this month he expects Japan will once again begin buying U.S. beef by the end of summer as a result of the series of bilateral meetings and information exchanges.
 
Fernandez, in a prepared statement issued from Colorado late Wednesday, said the Japanese delegation was briefed on the two "inconclusive" BSE test results the USDA announced over the last several days, one of which has been confirmed negative.
 
"We look forward to our meeting in Japan next month where we will finalize our technical report that will serve as the basis for the discussions between our governments to establish the terms by which beef trade will resume," Fernandez said.
 
Japan, which is traditionally the largest foreign market for U.S. beef, banned it in December after the USDA announced the discovery of a case of BSE.
 
The U.S. exported 352,448 metric tons of beef to Japan in 2003, worth about $1.3 billion, according to USDA data compiled by the U.S. Meat Export Federation.