Japan Ban On US Beef To Be Eased

Negotiators struck a tentative deal Saturday to allow limited imports of American beef into Japan for the first time since Tokyo closed its lucrative market late last year over mad cow disease fears, Japanese and U.S. officials said.

The general agreement, the details of which will be worked out in coming weeks, came at the end of three days of contentious talks between American and Japanese officials. The pact will also lead to the resumption of Japanese beef exports to the United States.

U.S. beef, which had become popular in Japan as a cheaper and more plentiful alternative to pricey domestic meat, should begin appearing in restaurants and supermarkets within "a matter of weeks," said J.B. Penn, the Agriculture Department's undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services.

Japan banned U.S. beef imports last December after the discovery of the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, in Washington state. Before that, Japan was the most lucrative overseas market for American beef.

The agreement requires both sides to inspect slaughterhouses and change regulations before Tokyo would allow the import of beef products from cows younger than 20 months old. Imports of American beef products from older animals could resume after July 2005, the two sides said in a joint statement.

"We hope following that, we can return to the normal trade patterns we had before BSE was discovered," Penn said.

The tentative deal would also let Japan restart its beef exports to the United States, which shut its markets to Japanese beef after Tokyo's first discovered case of mad cow disease in 2001. The disease spreads in the nervous systems and other parts of the cow, and can fatally infect humans who consume contaminated beef.

During the talks, U.S. and Japanese officials reviewed a Japanese proposal - awaiting Tokyo's final approval - to exempt younger cows from testing, Penn said. They also narrowed differences over methods to authenticate the age of cattle, he said.

Japan had demanded that all U.S. beef come only from animals with a birth record. But U.S. beef producers don't keep such records for every animal, relying instead on birth records for herds and a grading system that uses tenderness of the meat to judge age.

"Our production system simply doesn't lend itself to having a birth certificate for each and every animal," Penn said, adding that U.S. producers can determine the age of animal to within a few days, but not the exact birthdate.

A joint study, which will include experts from an international agricultural organization, will show whether U.S. methods are accurate. In July 2005, officials from both sides will discuss dropping all restrictions on beef, Penn said.

The at-times heated meetings were scheduled to end Friday after two days but they stretched to Saturday afternoon.

The two sides have been at odds over testing since the discovery of the first case of the disease in the United States last December prompted Tokyo immediately to shut its markets to American beef imports.

Japan checks all domestically bred cows entering the food chain, and had demanded that the United States adopt similar blanket testing. Washington had resisted, dismissing such testing as costly and unreliable in detecting infections among young cows.

However, Tokyo recently has been considering relaxing its testing standards. Last week, Japan's Food and Safety Commission began examining a proposal from the agriculture and health ministries to exempt young cows from testing. Japan has yet to detect BSE in cows younger than 20 months.

The talks came as a dairy cow from western Japan tested positive for the bovine disease in preliminary tests conducted early Saturday, an official said. If confirmed, the 5-year-11-month-old cow from Mie prefecture (state) would be Japan's 15th animal with the fatal brain-wasting illness.

Mie prefectural government official Itaru Okamoto said authorities had ordered a temporary quarantine on the farm where the cow was raised and sent samples to a state-run research center north of Tokyo for more precise testing. Okamoto said test results could be released as early as Tuesday, but refused to provide further details.