05/16/05 Japan support;Feedlot closure impacts?

Just a week after Japan's Food Safety Commission recommended that full b.s.e. testing in livestock and meat products come to an end, and be replaced with a system that tests animals and products of animals twenty one months of age or older, Japan's ruling political party has given its support to the proposal. And the support of the Liberal Democratic Party is the latest positive news that Japan could soon reopen its market to U.S. beef products. The Japanese government has still not yet officially announced a date to end the ban, but another key milestone in getting their market reopen to our beef is set for Friday. That is when Japan's public comment period on reopening their market to our beef is set to conclude. The impact will be big. So says Jim McAdams, President of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, on the potential of Pacific Northwest feeder lots shutting down due to the continuing ban on Canadian live cattle coming into the U.S. and the impact on cattle feeding in the states. MCADAMS: If we lose those plants, it's going to hurt the entire nation, 'cause we're losing our infrastructure, it will hurt the cow  calf producers and the feeders in the Pacific Northwest. Not to mention, according to Mc Adams, increased prices as Northwest cattle could be shipped to the Mid West. McAdams is in Pasco today speaking before the Washington Cattle Feeders Association forum covering the Canadian border closure and its current and potential impacts on the Northwest feeder industry. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. ALLEN: Most of us are acquainted with Zoo-doo, zoo animal waste that is recycled into fertilizer and often sold. Being a horse owner I can't fathom the physical energy one must have to clean the elephant stalls considering that a half a dozen pachyderms generate up to 1000 pounds of dung each day. Typically, zoos pay someone big bucks to cart manure away where it is then recycled but I recently became of aware of one zoo in upstate New York that is developing a program that has the potential to make zoo-do "zoom." The fact that elephants are not the greatest digester coupled with their massive hay intake happens to makes their droppings ideal for conversion into energy and $400,000 dollars heat and electricity bill the zoo pays a year makes using zoo doo as an alternative energy source something to pursue. Currently there are a small number of farms and dairies that have applied this technology in the US so it remains to be seen if the cost of developing the system makes it feasible to use zoo doo to zoom as an energy source. I'm Susan Allen and this is Food Forethought.