U.S. Meat Export Federation Also Wants Less BSE Testing, Especially By Japan

Posted on October 19, 2008 by Mad Cow

Everyone, at one time or another, has used "white noise" as a sleep aid.   National Public Radio (NPR) tries to keep it a secret, but its over-night broadcasts are highly effective "white noise" for many people. The inclusion of the BBC reports are very useful to those seeking shut-eye.

The trouble for those of us who indulge in this practice is sometimes we hear things in a half asleep-half awake state that leaves us confused the next day.   There was a report over the weekend about South Korea's taste for beef after all the protests and political unrest due to the resumption of U.S. beef imports.   We thought we heard that McDonald's, however, had signs that read: "Only Safe Australian Beef Served."

We thought thought we'd check and see if U.S. Beef is doing anything about this marketing challenge, and instead we found the Denver-based U.S. Meat Export Federation is focused on turning Japanese government opinion against so much BSE testing.  We learned the USMEF hosted a conference in Tokyo just last week with this focus:

An overreliance on meaningless testing and a lack of focus on documenting the effectiveness of steps that are making significant inroads against Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) are hindering a hungry world’s access to protein, driving up food costs and harming local economies as well as the U.S. beef industry.

According to the USMEF, Japan’s insistence on 100 percent testing for all cattle has been a costly error, but one that is difficult to reverse because it has been portrayed to consumers in Japan as an essential safety step.  Japan was U.S, Beef's largest export market until the 2003 discovery of a Mad Cow from a herd in Canada found its way into Washington State.

USMEF presented speakers who claimed Japan is spending $10 billion a year on useless testing.

Meanwhile, we went to Meat & Poultry, the business journal for meat and poultry processors, to learn that since June, nearly 20,000 tons of U.S. beef has entered South Korea.

Go here for the Meat & Poultry story on the export federation's conference in Japan.  Now we will go back to sleep and maybe learn something else by morning!

 




 

 

 

 

 

 

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Europe Sees No Need For Testing Brains Of Younger Cattle

Posted on October 15, 2008 by Mad Cow

Less testing of cattle brains for BSE is being recommended today to the Board of the Food Standards Agency of the European Commission.   Under current regulations, the brains of all cattle aged over 30 months are tested for BSE before the beef is allowed into the food chain.  The plan is to raise the testing age to 48 months from next January.

In the UK, according to the Times Online, this would mean that beef from 106,000 cattle a year – about a quarter of all British beef produced annually – would be allowed on sale for the dinner plate without their brains being tested.

The Food Standards Agency's board advice will be sent to health ministers.  Approval has already been given to the Commission by the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa).  The newspaper reports that:

Professor Patrick Wall, chairman of Efsa and an adviser to the FSA on meat controls, told The Times that the tests on 30 month-old cattle were redundant.  “In the past two years of testing for BSE in animals over 30 months there have been no positive cases in cattle under 42 months throughout Europe. My view is that the controls are not necessary and are not proportionate to the risk,” he said.

The move isn't going down without controversy.  Times Online says:  The move - 12 years after the Government admitted a link between eating BSE-infected beef and the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease – has alarmed families who have lost loved ones from the incurable illness.

For more, go here.

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BSE Costing U.S. Beef Exporters Billions of Dollars

Posted on October 8, 2008 by Mad Cow

The 2003 discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a dairy cow of Canadian origin in a Washington State cattle herd cost U.S. beef exporters $11 billion between 2004 and 2007, a new report says.

Because many countries restricted imports of U.S. beef after that 2003 event for reasons inconsistent with international standards, the International Trade Commission undertook a study.  It's report is titled "Global Beef Trade: Effects of Animal Health, Sanitary, Food Safety, and Other Measures on U.S. Beef Exports."

Meat & Poultry, the business journal for meat and poultry processors,  reports on the study:

Farm-gate sales of U.S. cattle and calves during the period between 2004 and 2007, the period from which this study is based upon, were $195.5 billion, so the $11 billion in losses estimated by the I.T.C. translates to 5.6 percent of cattle producers’ income, according to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The report also estimated tariffs and tariff-rate quota restrictions cost the industry another $6.3 billion from 2004 to 2007. 

For the rest of M&P story, go here.

 

 

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