Foot-and-mouth hits exports / Could take 5 years to resume wagyu shipments to some nations

Akihito Teramura and Izuru Jitsumori / Yomirui Shimbun Staff Writers

Exports of wagyu beef have plunged due to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Miyazaki Prefecture and they are not likely to recover soon, although the prefectural government said it would lift restrictions on transporting cattle as early as Tuesday if there were no more cases of the disease.

All beef exports were suspended April 20 when the first case of infection was confirmed. Exports to Hong Kong and Macao restarted following bilateral consultations, but exports to Singapore, Vietnam and the United States are still suspended as the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) has named Japan as a country infected with foot-and-mouth disease.

The OIE is a multinational intergovernmental organization established in 1924 to share information regarding animal epidemics and draw up sanitary standards for international trade.

When outbreaks occur of such diseases as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow, member countries are obliged to report them to the OIE.

The government has named wagyu beef as an important product in its plan to double exports of agricultural and marine products from 445.4 billion yen in 2009 to 1 trillion yen by 2017.

Exports of beef surged from 74 tons in 2006 to 565 tons in 2009, but rapidly decreased from 83 tons in March to 8.7 tons in May after the foot-and-mouth outbreak occurred.

To restart full-scale beef exports, Japan must be recognized by the OIE as free of foot-and-mouth disease, something many countries require as a condition for importing Japanese beef. However, this country is not likely to gain disease-free status until May or later.

The first requirement for regaining disease-free status is for there to be no reported cases for three months after the slaughter of animals in affected areas. If this country has no new outbreaks of foot-and-mouth, it will be eligible to apply for disease-free status in early October.

However, the nation would also have to undergo screening by OIE's science committee in February, with a decision made by its general meeting in May.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry asked the OIE to move up the schedule, but the organization is against holding a special meeting of the science committee, according to the ministry.

Even if Japan is deemed disease-free, whether the trade in beef resumes will depend on negotiations with each country.

"It will take more than five years to restart exports to some countries," an official of a meat wholesaler said.

"If exports are suspended for a long time, we'll have to rebuild the market from scratch," an official of the Japan Meat Traders Association said.

In some countries, there are moves to use the meat of wagyu cattle raised in Australia, China and the United States instead of Japan.

Tokyo-based Yazawa Meat Co. opened a Korean-style barbecue restaurant in Singapore in May as its first overseas restaurant, using wagyu beef produced in Australia and the United States.

"We decided [such wagyu beef] would be satisfactory," Yazawa Meat manager Nobuaki Tsurumi said.

Many restaurants in Shanghai have signs proclaiming they serve wagyu beef.

However, China, which banned imports of Japanese beef even before the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, reportedly uses beef from wagyu cattle smuggled through third countries or of black cows that are said to be descended from wagyu cattle.

Wagyu meat produced in China is sometimes priced higher than authentic Japanese wagyu, which could damage the wagyu brand, observers say.

(Jitsumori is a Yomiuri Shimbun correspondent in Singapore.)