09/08/05 Face slap

Face Slap Sometimes even a little slap in the face can hurt or make you a little upset. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be right back with a face-slap story. Our own USDA is at it again  first USDA secretary Mike Johanns says beef prices that American producers are receiving to are too high, then the USDA pushes for resumption of live cattle imports from Canada so Japan will see that we import beef from a BSE country. This is supposed to get Japan to import U.S. beef again. Well, that didn't happen, so the USDA traders come up with another really clever plan that will jump-start the Japanese-American beef trade for sure. The new idea is to import Japanese beef  oh year  you heard right  import Japanese beef. The USDA thinks we should import beef from a country that has had over 20 confirmed cases of BSE but still won't import our beef after we have one case of BSE that was traced back to a cow of Canadian origin. A cow, that would have probably never been part of any beef destined for Japanese markets. Now, this is really a little slap since Japan only export about 33,000 pounds of beef to the U.S., but it hurts to think the USDA would resume imports from a country that cost U.S. producers a market worth about $1.7 billion. If the USDA thinks this silly little plan will get Japan to import U.S. beef again, I think they are totally wrong. I believe only sanctions in other Japanese imported products will get Japan's attention. I'm Jeff Keane. Western Livestock Reporter 8/24/05