July 20, 2010

 

FMD devastates Japanese beef exports

The highly contagious disease has paralysed the local economy of Miyazaki, Japan and has also spread panic to other beef-producing regions, including Matsuzaka and Kobe.

 

The FMD outbreak has forced Japan to halt most wagyu beef exports, internationally known for its marbled texture, tenderness, flavour and sky-high price. While other brands are better known internationally, breeders in both cattle-raising regions count on supplies of calves from Miyazaki.

 

Beef exports, which rose steadily to a record 676 tonnes worth JPY4.5 billion (US$52 million, EUR40 million, GBP34 million) last year, have ground to a virtual halt. Shipments plunged from 77 tonnes in April to just nine tonnes in May as key markets including the US and Singapore closed their doors. Among the meat's big markets, only Hong Kong and Macao are still accepting imports and then only from designated slaughterhouses unaffected by the outbreak.

 

Miyazaki has had to cull nearly a fifth of its cows since May and close its cattle and pig markets. The prefecture has lost 50 out of 55 stud bulls, used to sire calves with just the right amount of fat that makes them so desirable to Japanese cattle breeders.

 

Many farmers have lost entire herds and incomes, particularly in central Miyazaki where "there is not a single cow remaining", says Toshio Mori, general manager of agricultural policy at the co-operative.

 

Since the state of emergency was declared, economic activity around Miyazaki has dropped dramatically. "Seed companies that supply farmers, construction companies that build facilities for the agricultural sector and even printers which supply labels for the tubes in which stud seed is sold say they cannot do business at all," says Shigeru Matsuyama at the Miyazaki chamber of commerce.

 

Public events are cancelled, community centres and other facilities are closed, and visitors are scarce.

 

"When the state of emergency was called, that is when the nightmare began. Without customers, the laundry companies don't get our orders, we don't use electricity, taxis don't get business so petrol doesn't sell . . . I have been in the hotel business for 40 years but this is the first time that I have experienced such a situation," says Tatsuo Matsushita, president of Hotel Century Miyazaki.

 

In spite of Miyazaki's best efforts to contain the disease, including sterilisation of vehicles and people, goods and visitors from the region are not always welcome in other parts of Japan.

 

With the massive culling, sterilisation and other measures apparently having an effect, local residents are waiting for the disease to run its course, in the hope that life can return to normal.

 

In spite of a partial lifting of the state of emergency on Friday (July 16), and throughout the prefecture this month, it will take years for Miyazaki to rebuild its cattle population and revive the market status of its beef.