Japan has agreed to lift its two-year-old ban on Canadian and United States beef as of Dec. 12.
However, considerable red tape remains.
“My hypothesis is the middle of January to end of January before we will actually see products going on the ships and heading over,” said Cam Daniels of the Canada Beef Export Federation.
“This is a great day that they are announcing an opening but there is a lot of red tape to go through before beef actually ships.”
From Dec. 13-23 Japanese authorities will examine cattle operations and a limited number of processing facilities in both countries to guarantee no risk of BSE exists.
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After that, they are expected to report back to officials in Japan on whether age verification and specified risk material removal rules are met. If so, health certificates can be approved and shipments from Canada and the U.S. can begin.
The approved list includes offal products like tripe, heart, liver, kidney and tongue, as well as boneless beef and some bone-in products not generated from the vertebrae column. Products like chuck short ribs are acceptable but porterhouse and T-bone steaks are not.
Canadian Food Inspection Agency official Francine Lord said meat could be shipped immediately if an exporter meets the parameters and a Japanese customer is interested.
“We hope very soon, if we have an importer interested in Canadian beef, we are ready to ship tomorrow,” she said.
Principally, the Japanese want proper identification and birth dates to prove the beef is derived from cattle younger than 21 months, as well as assurance that specified risk materials are removed and disposed of so they never enter the human food chain.
Brains, spines, glands and other nerve tissue are believed to harbor the BSE infection.
The biggest challenge is finding enough eligible cattle of the right age. The U.S. is using a maturity category known as A-40 through it grading system. Canada will first rely on birth certificates and use ossification of specific bones for quality control.
A Canadian grid will be developed indicating the level of ossification at a particular age of maturity. So far, 1.3 million birth dates have been voluntarily registered with the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency.
Daniels estimates only 250,000 head are eligible for export to a country with a 400,000 tonne shortage of beef.
“It will be real difficult for Canada and the U.S. to meet the demand due to the extreme restrictions on the eligibility of cattle under 21 months of age,” said Daniels.
Some American officials estimate only about 15 percent of U.S. slaughter ready cattle qualify for export. About 10 percent of the herd has adequate birth records and a smaller amount could meet the government grading test for maturity.
Age verification could be Canada’s ace in the hole.
“By late spring, if there is a real effort among our producers, we could have quite a large number of a cattle that are eligible for that market,” said Dennis Laycraft, executive vice- president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.
“It is really going to fall back to us how quickly we are able to meet that opportunity. The increase in numbers that we are seeing, hopefully we’ll have more substantive progress in 2006,” he said.
Knowing ages allows plants to sort and segregate cattle for export sooner. Offal products could be removed and set aside rather than waiting until carcasses appear on the grading line 48 hours later.
“This is one of those times where we could create a really distinct Canadian advantage if we work hard at it,” Laycraft said.
Still another challenge is high Japanese beef tariffs ranging from 10 to 50 percent, depending on the value added to the imported beef product.
On the positive side, it is anticipated that with Japan resuming trade, countries like Taiwan could follow shortly.
Hong Kong is open to Canada and approved five processing plants earlier this year. On Dec. 12 it approved eight more plants as suitable for export. It does not accept U.S. beef at this time.
