051143 Japan Meat Packers Tour Bowling Green Market

Cattlenetwork.com - The international meat market is hitting closer to home. As Missouri cattlemen work to get U.S. beef flowing back into Japan, Japanese representatives came to Missouri to see the U.S. beef supply first hand.

Representatives from Japan’s beef market visited Eastern Missouri Commission Company (EMCC) livestock market yesterday in Bowling Green, Mo., to learn more about what Missouri cattlemen are doing to ensure a safer U.S. beef supply.

“General Japanese consumers don’t know about U.S. farmers. They know only what the media says. They know BSE was found 2 years ago, so they are scared. They don’t know what farmers (in the U.S.) are doing,” said Makoto Kubota, one of two representatives from Prima Meat Packers of Tokyo, Japan, the third largest meatpacker in Japan.

Yoshi Tsuchiya, of IMI Global, a company that is helping the cattle industry track cattle within the Missouri QSA program, brought Nobushi Sasaki, of ICREST International, an international beef supplier with headquarters in the U.S., and two of his customers from Japan, Hiroaki Ota and Kubota, to the livestock market and talked to Missouri cattlemen about the desire to reopen trade markets.

Ota and Kubota Both said Japanese consumers don’t know the efforts of individual U.S. cattle producers to reopen the border.

Those efforts are shown by the willingness of cattle producers to be involved in the QSA program throughout Missouri. EMCC is the first livestock market in the state to provide a QSA certified sale for feedlot and packer buyers. The sale Wednesday had nearly 2500 feeder cattle consigned, all under 30 months of age, and were age and source verified, as the program requires.

Jay Kerr, a cattle producer from Mexico, Mo., brought about 90 calves to the sale. Even though he didn’t see much of a price difference for his QSA cattle versus the current market, he will continue with the program.

“Since we participate in the MFA Healthtrack program, this was just one more step to include the electronic ear tags,” said Kerr. “Because we already do most of the paperwork with MFA, we’ll continue to do the QSA also.”

Feeder prices at the sale were steady to slightly higher for 600 weight calves than EMCC’s regular Friday feeder sale.

“I was pleased with the sale because we sold cattle higher with this week’s lower price trend in the market,” said Justin Angell, one of the EMCC owners. “We look forward to the industry’s acceptance to the QSA system.”

After their visit, the Japanese visitors assured cattle producers they felt safer about U.S. beef and were anxious to see U.S. beef back on Japan’s grocery shelves. Kubota and Ota indicated they were anxious to buy and sell Missouri cattle next week back in Japan.

According to Tsuchiya, a majority of Japanese consumers were concerned about U.S. beef right now due to the emotion over food safety. The Japanese consumers had to deal with a BSE outbreak in Japan two years before the U.S., resulting in the Japanese consumer putting a lot of security in the Japan’s system of BSE testing every animal. The group thought Japanese consumers would benefit from the educational campaigns that U.S. cattlemen have used to educate American consumers.

“They (Japanese consumers) believe in the safety of the Japan testing,” said Kubota.

“There should be a way to promote the QSA cattle program to the Japanese market so they understand,” Tsuchiya said.

Sasaki took the idea one step further.

“We need a big promotion for U.S. beef in Japan. Advertising makes us feel confident in our products. We need a photo of the U.S. cattleman hanging in the grocery store as we sell their beef,” said Sasaki.

Angell reminded the group of the requirements producer face as they participate in the QSA program as they toured the facility.

To comply with the QSA, the producer is required to have a premise ID to verify the calf’s source, records to verify age and , and be equipped with electronic ear tags. In addition to QSA requirements, calves sold through this sale were required to be weaned a minimum of 45 days prior to the sale and have two rounds of vaccinations.

“Now with the electronic tags, it would be possible to tell which meat came from the U.S.,” said Angell. “We could even track it back to Missouri and that it was sold at the Eastern Missouri livestock market.”

Industry insiders have hinted at the possibility of opening Japanese markets by end of December. With President Bush in the Pacific Rim, producers today were anxious to hear updates about the Japan market. Whether the announcement comes soon or not, both the U.S. and Japan will be looking for a safe beef supply for their consumers. Local beef producers in eastern Missouri hope Japan will find it in Bowling Green, Mo.

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