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Japan Halts Shipments Of U.S. Beef Products(Tampa Tribune (FL) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jan. 21--Japan reinstated its ban on U.S. beef imports Friday, a step that could hit Florida's beef industry, but the impact likely will be minimal and short-lived, beef and agriculture officials said. Florida does not export beef directly to Japan, the officials said. However, Florida supplies calves to Texas, Colorado and other states where the calves are fed, fattened and later sold for beef, some of which goes to Japan. "Anytime we have an interruption in trade, that will affect us," said Jim Handley, executive vice president of the Florida Cattlemen's Association in Kissimmee. The cattle industry has about a $4 billion impact on the state's economy, Handley said. Florida ranks 12th nationally for supplying beef cattle. Japan stopped imports of beef from the United States after inspectors found banned cattle parts in a shipment, disrupting trade that resumed last month after a two-year halt because of mad-cow disease. Three of 41 boxes of beef from New York-based Atlantic Veal & Lamb Inc. were found to contain spinal cord, the Agriculture Ministry of Japan said in a statement on its Web site Friday. The shipment will be sent back or incinerated, the ministry said. "We will stop importing beef from the U.S.," Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters in Tokyo. "It's disappointing as we just started." Koizumi said he ordered Agriculture Minister Shoichi Nakagawa and Health Minister Jiro Kawasaki to take "appropriate measures." Despite the fact that Florida does not export beef to Japan, the U.S. beef industry will take a hit, which eventually will reach Florida, said Liz Compton, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services. Charles Bronson, Florida's commissioner of agriculture, is concerned about the ban but not overly so because he expects the matter to be resolved quickly, Compton said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture quickly dispatched inspectors to Japan, Compton said. The ban sent cattle prices in Chicago to a two-month low. More than 60 nations banned U.S. beef, threatening $3.8 billion in annual exports, half of which had gone to Japan in 2003. Japan had resumed imports Dec. 12 after concluding the risk of mad-cow disease in U.S. beef was "very small," providing certain conditions were met. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said the United States takes the matter "very seriously" and promised a thorough investigation. "Our agreement with Japan is to export beef with no vertebral column, and we have failed to meet the terms of that agreement," Johanns said in a statement. He promised to take "appropriate action" against the two USDA inspectors who approved the meat shipments found to contain the prohibited material. Japan had imposed limits on U.S. beef imports, including that the meat come from cattle no older than 20 months and that spinal cords, brains and other parts of cattle blamed for spreading the human variant of mad-cow disease are removed. Mad-cow disease is a brain-wasting livestock illness that scientists say is spread in cattle by tainted animal feed. Eating contaminated meat from infected animals can cause a fatal human variant that has been blamed for the deaths of 151 people in the United Kingdom, where it was first reported in the 1980s. Tampa Tribune reporter Will Rodgers contributed to this report. Information from Bloomberg News also was used. |