11/13/06 Mixed news from Korea on beef

American Rancher November 13, 2006 It's a good news- bad news report coming out of South Korea regarding its reopening its market to U.S. beef products. The Korean government officially responded late last week to U.S. requests for clarification of their beef trade restrictions. USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Jack Lambert, first gives the good news. Lambert: "The issue of silver skin, which is a connective tissue in whole muscle cuts, Korea clarified that occurs in boneless beef and would not be a workmanship issue or a quality defect, so that they will not discount that product. Regarding cartilage and bone chips and breast bone they did indicate as well that those would not be considered in their system as specified risk materials. They still will not be acceptable in boneless beef but the penalty for finding them would be potentially less than if they were classified as specified risk material. So those are the positive things." However, Lambert says the Koreans have been unwilling to establish commercial tolerance levels for bone chips and cartilage. Lambert: "These things happen periodically in product we import into the U.S. There are no penalties at least up to a certain level of those defects." Lambert says he will be traveling to Seoul in the coming weeks to continue discussions in hopes of resolving the remaining issues. I'm Bob Hoff.