041008 Mad-Cow Talks May Spur U.S. Beef Exports to JapanOctober 7, 2004Fort Collins, CO - U.S. and Japanese officials held "constructive" talks in Fort Collins this week on adopting new testing guidelines for mad cow disease that may open the door for some U.S. beef exports to Japan, a Japanese agriculture official said. The U.S. side said it would be possible to certify the age of its cattle if Japan were to lift testing requirements for animals younger than a certain age, said Tatsumi Okura, a food safety official at the Agriculture Ministry in Tokyo. Japan banned importing all U.S. beef in December after mad cow disease was discovered in Washington state. The government is considering an exemption for young cattle, and the two-day talks between the countries, which ended in Fort Collins, focused on how to verify a cow's age. "We had constructive discussion and development," Okura said. "We have to agree on a scientific way to determine a cow's age before we can agree on age exemptions."
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