To Pressue and Who?

[cakadu]

I've been listening to the news about how there is more pressure being put on the Americans to open the border and I'm wondering if we shouldn't somehow be working on another angle of this.

Yes, the Americans have their own reasons for keeping the border closed - politics aside - their beef prices are better and demand is going up.

Now it seems to me that a lot of the reason the Americans are keeping the border shut is because Japan has said that if Canadian Beef gets into what is shipped to them from the U.S., they will cut off the Americans. Doesn't that beg the question of how we should be approaching the Japanese? Shouldn't we be questioning why the Japanese weren't allowed in here when the announcement was first made, as they had requested?

What are we doing to put their minds at ease, answer questions and whatever else it is they might need in order to remove their moratorium from the Americans?

[rusty1]

You read my mind Cadau. I would like to know why the Japaneese are so sore at us. We (our) beef leadership must have poked them in the eye sometime in the past. I'll bet there is some dirty laundry out there.

[ValueChainFX]

Japan were very good customers for Canadian beef. Is there dirty laundry out there, well I am sure the Canadian Beef Export Federation would know. This is probably the best organization to find out that info and perhaps work on them to ease up too. The people of CBEF work very hard for the industry good times and bad.

[Bruce14]

I think everyone has been thinking alot about the Japanese angle lately. There has been little news or comments from any of our Gov't OR INDUSTRY leaders.

My take on the Japanese is that they are using this as a bargaining tool. I think we will find reduced tarriffs against Japanese cars etc. in trade for U.S. beef that may have Canadian beef mixed in.

I don't think Japan has anything personal against Canada. We have just become a victim of international politics and bargaining once again.

[cakadu]

I guess for me anyway, it would be kind of interesting to know why the Japanese officials were refused entry shortly after the lone cow case was reported. Perhaps if we knew that, it would shed some light on why they are so adamant against having any Canadian beef in Japan and even going so far as to incinerate what was there.

The other thing that I am wondering about with all this pressure being put on the U.S. to open it's borders is what is going to be the plan of action once the border is open. Are our "leaders" expecting that it will be business as it was prior to the lone cow, or is it going to be as some have suggested and it will take 2 years for the beef industry to recover from this. The latter is an overly pessimistic view, but these days nothing is outside the realm of possibility.

What are the marketing plans, food safety plans etc.? We have heard nothing about what the industry is going to do to regain the confidence of those countries that banned our products - whether the ban was justified or not?

To me, it seems like we cannot rely on our reputation alone, nor can we say the science is saying we are safe. Consumer perception is reality and we need to be giving them the message that they need to hear. Domestically, it looks like there isn't any problem at all, or at least it's a very minimal one. Globally, I am not so sure i.e. Japanese incineration of Canadian beef.

What should our leaders be doing?