December 6, 2012

Scottish beef producers ask help on lifting import ban by Japan

The Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) Secretary of State was asked for help by a group of Scottish beef producers in getting the Japanese government to lift its ban on beef exports from Europe.

Scottish producers are seeing the Japanese market as potentially lucrative market for high quality exports from their country.

Several countries such as Japan and Russia closed its doors to red meat exports from Europe due to a crisis from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as "mad cow disease". However, it has come to the attention of the producers through recent trade missions to Asia that there is a growing demand for high quality beef, a demand that they are confident of being able to supply.

In a letter to Owen Paterson MP, the group states that there is a golden opportunity now for the Scottish beef market to supply the growing consumption of beef in China and Southeast Asia. Nigel Miller from NFU Scotland, one of the signatories of the letter, states that Scottish beef farmers could not but help and pine for the Japanese market when they hear about the growing demand for high quality products like whiskey and salmon, which the country also exports to Japan.

He claims that Scotland has one of the highest levels of traceability and safety of beef in the world. The group is asking Defra to intervene after it had successfully secured a lift on the ban on exports of British beef in Russia.