Japan ready to import Missouri beef

Japan Dec. 12 announced that it would resume importing beef from the United States, provided it comes from cows younger than 21 months that have been individually catalogued.

“We are very pleased the Japanese government announced today they are finally lifting their two-year ban on imports of U.S. beef,” said Charles Kruse, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, in a news release. “The loss of the Japanese market robbed the American cattle industry of substantial economic gains.”

Garrett Hawkins, director of national legislative programs for the Missouri Farm Bureau, said the restrictions Japan has placed on imported beef are more severe than those from other countries, but even with those restrictions, the reopening of a market that purchased $1.4 billion worth of U.S. beef in 2003 will definitely help, especially in Missouri.

“Missouri has a quality systems assessment program that the Missouri Department of Agriculture kicked off, essentially for beef to get into Japan,” Hawkins said. “Essentially, our verification program means that 15,000 head of cattle are eligible to be imported to Japan, and we’re really the first state to be ready. It’s exciting that Missouri is on the forefront of meeting the demands of foreign customers.”

Getting Japanese citizens to buy U.S. beef, though, may not be that easy. A survey by Asahi Shimbun, a leading Japanese newspaper, recently showed that 67 percent of Japanese citizens opposed lifting the trade ban and said they wouldn’t buy U.S. beef.

Hawkins said it will take work to re-establish trust.

“For years they’ve enjoyed a safe reliable product that they can’t readily replace,” he said. “We are going to have to do outreach work, but hopefully Japanese consumers will quickly begin purchasing beef again. Hopefully with the program that we have here, as demand picks up we’ll be able to take advantage of that.”

Agriculture in Missouri – especially in southwest Missouri – is a vital part of the economy. Missouri’s cattle industry is the second largest in the country, second only to Texas.

In Missouri’s seventh district, which includes most of 10 southwest Missouri counties, among them Greene, agriculture is a $3.9 billion industry annually.

Industry woes

The state’s agriculture industry could use the good news.

Since early summer, Missouri has been battling a drought that threatens to cripple the farming industry.

November rainfall was at least 1.5 inches below normal for counties in southwest and west central Missouri, with some counties more than seven inches behind the average since September.

University of Missouri’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute estimates that state losses will top $380 million in corn, hay and soybean crops this year, about 20 percent of the entire 2004 total.

And much of the product that the state is able to export can’t get out of the country – half of all U.S. exports go through the port of New Orleans, which still is not running at full capacity after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

But the problems are not all caused by Mother Nature.

Restrictive health ordinances that are being considered by several counties in southwest Missouri, including Greene County, are a source of concern for many farmers.

Charles Buckner, president of the Greene County Farm Bureau, runs a cattle farm with about 120 head of dairy cattle and up to 300 beef cattle.

Buckner said he’s worried about a push by Greene County officials to make farming health regulations stricter than those imposed at the state or federal level, for fear that farmers would move their operations to counties with less restrictions.

He added that many of the dangers that county officials are supposed to be protecting against – such as animal waste, noxious fumes and fertilizer runoff – have been exaggerated.

“It’s not the farmers that are polluting things,” Buckner said. “They say the fertilizers are getting into the streams, but farmers don’t put that much (fertilizer) on. People put 10 times the fertilizer on a yard that we’d buy to farm with. We harvest it; we can’t afford high-priced fertilizer.”

The restrictions, according to Ron Boyer, assistant director of the Springfield-Greene County Health Department, threaten the livelihood of local small farmers.

“As with other forms of international trade, you have to go to bigger operations because the profit margins are so small,” Boyer said. “What has happened is, because of the threat of these county health ordinances, people are afraid that if they invest millions of dollars in a farm that could be profitable, the county will come in and shut them down.”

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