News Update

News Update
May 17, 2006

U.S. refuses to buy back rejected beef from Japan

The Japan Meat Traders Association said Wednesday the U.S. government has refused to buy back $12 million worth of American beef that it had imported but could not clear Japanese customs due to the discovery of a banned material, the Dow Jones Newswire reported in an article on cattlenetwork.com.

Washington said in a letter to the association that it cannot be held responsible for the damage, which affected the group’s 17 member firms, on the grounds that the loss stemmed from Tokyo’s decision to halt U.S. beef imports following the discovery in January.

The association asked the U.S. government to buy back 1,300 tons of beef in February after Japan reimposed its U.S. beef ban in January due to the discovery of a backbone in a veal shipment.

President supports guest worker program

President Bush repeated his support Monday night for a workable immigrant guest worker program, Tom Steever reported in an article on brownfieldnetwork.com. In his address on immigration, the President called a guest worker program vital to U.S. agriculture. President Bush says security is the centerpiece of his five-point strategy for immigration reform.

The President is deploying up to 6,000 National Guard troops to support border patrol officers on the border with Mexico and is calling for an additional $1.9 billion in funding border security, Steever continued. President Bush says employers should be held responsible for hiring illegal immigrants, and he called on the Senate to pass comprehensive immigration reform by the end of May. They resumed debate on that measure Monday.

President Bush repeated his opposition to amnesty for the millions of undocumented immigrants already living and working in the United States. But, he says those illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay if they pay a fine, pay their back taxes and go to the back of the line for citizenship, Steever concluded.

China largest market for U.S. biotechnology crops

Despite problems in transparency in the development of and application of regulations, U.S. biotech soybeans and other products are selling at record highs and are forecasted to continue doing well in the future, cattlenetwork.com reported.

Details about the future of agricultural biotechnology policy in the People’s Republic of China are still in doubt, but biotechnology will play an integral part of China’s agricultural development, the article continued. China is currently the largest market for U.S. agricultural biotechnology products — predominantly imported soy beans — and is a large producer of biotech cotton.

While China has begun to accept more domestic and imported biotechnology products, aspects of China’s regulatory system pose potential impediments for U.S. biotech products entering the market in China.

The U.S. government is engaged in bilateral policy and technical discussions with China as well as a suite of biotechnology capacity building activities to support these discussions. Through this, the U.S. government continues to push for increased transparency in the development of regulations governing this field and look for ways to promote overall market access for U.S. biotechnology crops, the article concluded.

— compiled by Meghan Soderstrom, assistant editor, Angus Productions Inc.