050635 Australia Backs U.S. In New Mad Cow Case

Sydney - Australia's beef industry, which banked a big pay-off from mad cow disease in the United States 18 months ago, on Tuesday urged Japanese consumers not to turn away from red meat after a new case of the disease.

Confirmation of a second U.S. case of the disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), follows the first discovery in December 2003 that led Japan to halt $1.4 billion a year worth of U.S. beef imports.

Japan turned mainly instead to Australia, whose share of the Japanese market doubled to 91 percent, worth A$2.25 billion ($1.73 billion) in 2004.

But the Australian industry warned that cases of mad cow disease were bad news for world beef markets. It called on Japanese consumers to recognize that the latest discovery was an isolated case and had not entered the food chain.

"It's a terrible thing that a whole nation's industry can be brought to its knees by one old animal that comes down with this disease that doesn't really mean much in the scheme of things any more," Michael Hartmann, deputy director of Cattle Council of Australia, said.

The new discovery, confirmed last Friday, came as Japanese authorities were at an advanced stage of considering easing the 18-month ban on imports of U.S. beef.

The new discovery was likely to delay the reopening of Japan's market to U.S. beef, although Japanese officials on Monday reaffirmed a commitment to easing the ban.

"One would hope for the sake of industry that they (Japanese authorities) look at it on a scientific basis and recognize that its not really posing any great threat," Hartmann said.

His sentiments were echoed by the rest of the Australian beef export industry, the world's largest with sales of 950,000 tonnes in 2004/05 worth about A$4.5 billion.

"We would hope it does not further disrupt the global beef trade," said David Crombie, chairman of Meat & Livestock Australia, the industry's marketing body.

Crombie hoped Japanese consumers would their steady return to beef since turning away from the product after the first U.S. case of the brain-wasting BSE disease, a variant of which can be passed on to humans.

Australia wanted to retain its increased market share in Japan, its largest market.

"(But) we're interested in larger world markets. We're very happy to compete in larger world markets. We don't like seeing incidents like this that shrink world markets," Crombie said.

Australian saleyard cattle prices have not reacted to the latest case of BSE, following a U.S. lead.

This indicated greater maturity by markets, Hartmann said.

"One day it will be wonderful when BSE is in the history books. At the moment the hype and the hysteria and the fear and the panic and the over- reaction is so far away from the actual danger that it isn't funny," he said.

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