010375 U.S. Ban on European Meat to Stay

Washington - A U.S. ban on meat imports from the European Union will stay in place until the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease is brought under control, Agriculture Department officials said.

“Were not going to start lifting parts of the ban until the number of cases starts to come down. It won't be next week,” said the department's chief of staff, Dale Moore.

Denmark, a major pork producer whose fourth biggest export market is the United States, is the U.S. ban's main victim and has been lobbying heavily for an exemption. U.S. restaurants say the ban will soon result in a shortage of a popular menu item, baby back ribs.

Foot-and-mouth disease is harmless to humans, but the fast-spreading virus is dreaded by the livestock industry because of the potential economic damage. The disease is fatal to young livestock and harms the development of older ones. The United States has been free of the disease since 1929.

The European outbreak began in Britain and has since spread to France, the Netherlands, and Ireland.

Moore, a former cattle industry lobbyist, said the outbreaks in continental Europe appear to be localized and contained, unlike the situation in Britain, where cases continue to grow.

The import ban was imposed on Britain in February and expanded March 13 to all 15 EU member states.

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, meanwhile, said that there was no reason to impose a moratorium on all livestock imports, as Senate Minority Leader Daschle, D-SD, and some U.S. farmers have proposed. Daschle said the moratorium was necessary to give USDA time to assess the adequacy of its controls for foot- and-mouth and mad cow disease, which is believed to cause a brain-wasting illness in humans.

Members of the National Farmers Union have been carrying the same message to Congress in meetings with lawmakers and aides this week.

A moratorium would probably fall hardest on Canada and Mexico, which ship cattle into the United States. Neither country has recorded a foot-and-mouth case in decades.

“We don't have any reason to put a moratorium” on all livestock imports, Veneman said. “North America at this point is foot-and-mouth free.”

She said the department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which is responsible for disease control programs, has adequate staff to do its job.

Some farm-state Republicans have also resurrected proposals to require country-of-origin labels on meat, an idea long opposed by USDA, as well as the meat industry and Canada. Critics of the proposals say they are designed to protect cattle producers in the northern United States from Canadian competition.

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