Officials rush to Japan to save US beef market

Millions of dollars in exports hang in the balance while officials struggle to repair the damage. Of the $3.9 billion in global sales of American beef in 2003, Japan, once the biggest US consumers of the meat, accounted for $1.4 billion.

A Department of Agriculture delegation will arrive in Japan tomorrow to discuss the ban on beef imports, an official at the US Embassy in Tokyo said. The delegation, dispatched at the request of Johanns, will include several high-level USDA officials who will meet with Japanese officials in Tokyo, according to Jeffrey Hill, a spokesman for the embassy.

US Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick is also expected to discuss the beef ban with Japanese officials during his three-day visit to Japan, which began yesterday.

Japanese stores pulled US beef products from their shelves yesterday, a day after the government said bone was discovered during an airport inspection of a recent shipment from New York.

Japan imposed a blanket ban on US beef imports in December 2003 after mad cow disease was first discovered in a US cow. There was much celebrating when Japan ended the ban last month. One US group flew in a beef shipment for a banquet in Tokyo with the Japanese food service industry. Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore quickly followed Japan's lead, reopening markets worth $911 million before the ban.

The product Japan found, bone-in veal from a meat packing plant in New York, is widely consumed by Americans and allowed under international trading rules, but Asian officials worry that bone presents a risk of mad cow disease. Japan was allowing only boneless beef from animals younger than 21 months, a stricter requirement than international guidelines call for.

For now, American beef is being held at Japanese ports until the US government completes a report on what happened, which Johanns said would be delivered immediately. Japan will decide whether to impose a ban on further imports, department officials said.

Industry groups said that the veal was from calves less than 6 months old and that mad cow disease hasn't been found in animals that young.

''What's being investigated is a technical violation, not a beef safety issue," said Terry Stokes, chief executive officer of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. ''The bottom line for our consumers around the world remains the same: US beef is safe."

On Friday, the government barred Atlantic Veal & Lamb, the Brooklyn company that sent the shipment, from selling meat to Japan. Company officials said that it was an honest mistake and that they misinterpreted the export rules.

US beef had begun a limited return to Japanese supermarkets and restaurants. According to a Kyodo News survey last month, however, 75 percent of Japanese were unwilling to eat US beef because of mad cow fears.