September 23, 2010

US urges South Korea to import beef from cattle of all ages

The US will call on South Korea to import beef from cattle of all ages during upcoming talks to address outstanding issues for the early ratification of a pending free trade deal, a senior US official has said.

Darci Vetter, deputy under secretary for the USDA's Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, said Washington "hopes for full implementation of the beef protocol the two sides negotiated in 2008 and expects to discuss this issue in the coming weeks."

Vetter's remarks follow those of Under Secretary of Agriculture Jim Miller, who said last month that the US has not yet made a decision on whether wider access to the Korean beef market should be a precondition for the ratification of the Korea FTA, signed in 2007 under the Bush administration.

The US beef industry has called for a cautious approach, fearing a possible backlash in the Korean market. In 2008, there were weeks of street rallies in Seoul over fears of mad cow disease from US beef, but since then imports have rebounded.

US beef exports to South Korea reached US$216 million last year, making South Korea the fourth-largest importer of US beef products. The comparable figure for the first six months of this year is US$225 million, up 130% from a year earlier.

South Korea was the second biggest US beef market, worth US$815 million, when Seoul banned imports due to fears over bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, after a few US cases surfaced in 2003.

South Korea resumed imports of US beef in 2008, but only from cattle younger than 30 months.

The Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) has since classified the US as "a controlled risk country" for BSE, which means the US can export meat cuts but not the "specified risk materials" (SRMs) such as brains, skulls, eyes and spinal cords, which carry a greater chance of transmitting mad cow disease to humans.

Meanwhile, beef is not an issue covered by the Korea FTA, but Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which handles trade, and some other politicians have threatened not to move for the approval of the pact unless South Korea allows shipments of beef from cattle of all ages. Montana is said to be the biggest source of beef from older cattle.