Deal has ranchers smiling

American cattlemen will once again sell beef to Japan after trade officials reached a deal to placate concerns about a single case of mad cow disease discovered in Eastern Washington 10 months ago.

With $1.7 billion in beef sales, Japan was the leading importer of American beef until it banned imports in December.

The resumption of beef exports, which was announced Saturday, is another encouraging sign for the domestic cattle industry that a single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy hasn’t spoiled the international appetite for American beef.

The news had Wade McLean of Post Falls smiling.

“It’s important for us to get back in there,” he said. “Markets are important for those of us in places like Idaho and Montana.”

McLean has several dozen cow-calf pairs on his farm north of Post Falls, where he also grows bluegrass, mint and hay.

Although cattle prices proved resilient in the face of the country’s first case of BSE, McLean and others in the beef industry are anxious to reclaim markets such as those in Japan and South Korea that are being lost to beef exporters such as Australia. South Korea, which also banned imports after the mad cow case was discovered, still has not resumed them.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” McLean said.

With its proximity to the Pacific and a reputation for well-marbled quality, beef from states in the Northwest was a popular choice in Japan, he said.

As part of the agreement Japan will be permitted to sell beef to the United States. Japanese beef has been banned since Tokyo disclosed the finding of BSE in 2001. In an unrelated instance, Japanese officials said Saturday a 6-year-old cow was tested positive for BSE – the 15th animal discovered to have the brain-wasting illness in Japan.

People can develop a variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease by eating brain or spinal tissue of infected cattle. There is no cure.

American ranchers were stung late last year by the discovery of the diseased cow from a dairy in Mabton, Wash.

The 6-year-old Holstein was killed Dec. 9 and the meat was processed into hamburger at several packing houses.

Much of the meat was recalled and most cattle from the related herds were quarantined and killed.

The cow was originally from Canada and brought into the United States.

It sent a shock wave through the agricultural industry that was relatively short lived. Cattle prices wavered, then rebounded as American buying habits changed little.

Perhaps more important, restrictions on Canadian cattle and beef products were kept intact. Those imports were banned by the U.S. government after BSE was discovered in a Black Angus cow in Alberta in May 2003.

McLean said the real test for cattle prices will be when beef trade with Canada returns to normal.

In a statement released Saturday, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman called the trade agreement with Japan an important milestone.

“We have put significant measures in place to further strengthen our already strong food safety system,” she said, adding that about 92,000 cattle had been tested for BSE during the past year without another case of BSE detected.

The agreement with Tokyo allows the two countries to export beef under a special marketing program that includes only calves younger than 21 months. The program will be reviewed in six months with the aim of restoring normal trade that includes older cattle, which are most prone to BSE.

The deal included a Japanese wish that all beef imports come from cattle with birth records, something beef producers don’t normally do.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said in a statement that the trade deal “is welcome news for U.S. cattlemen and for the U.S. economy.”

Trade discussions are now set to begin with South Korea, the No. 3 foreign market for American beef.

Overall, about 90 percent of the beef produced in the United States is eaten by Americans.