Agricultural News
One of the Big Five Beef Stories of 2010- No Movement by Japan to Widen Access to US Beef
Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:07:27 CST
One of the big Beef Industry stories of 2010 is without a doubt one of the very biggest frustrations for many cattle producers. It's all about the lack of progress in getting the Japanese to open their market wider to US beef. We focus on that Big Beef Industry story on this Beef Buzz- looking back at comments from May of this year.
The Japanese are dragging their feet and have no justification for keeping out US beef from animals older than 21 months of age. That continues to be the contention of the current US Senator from Nebraska, Mike Johanns, who was the US Secretary of Agriculture under President George W Bush.
Senator Johanns spoke to members of the National Association of Farm Broadcasters in Washington back in May- we were there and covered his remarks. Johanns says that the Japanese need to start working under the international guidelines established by the OIE, which indicate that US beef coming from cattle of any age is safe from problems with BSE- as long as you remove the specified risk materials.
The Senator seemed to offer current USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack a way to push the Japanese to a favorable solution. He suggested that Secretary Vilsack let his counterpart in Japan know that while he is sympathetic to their situation, that he was unsure how much longer he could "hold Congress back" over the lack of progress in getting more access into the Japanese market for US beef producers.
Since Senator Johanns compared the Toyota recall issue to the Japanese blocking access to their market for beef from the US that is perfectly safe- we have seen the issue rise up a couple of times- including when President Obama met with Japanese officials. The President was ineffective in getting any movement on this issue- and we end 2010 where we began the year- far away from getting the Japanese to move that 21 month standard to at least the more common 30 month of age dividing point where most countries that have an age limit have their cut off line set.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the state on the Radio Oklahoma Network- but is also a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the listen bar below for today's show- and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
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