DJ US Beef Company Confirms Plans To Ship Beef To South Korea

11:54 AM, July 16, 2008

By Bill Tomson

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Agriculture Online

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Kansas-based company Creekstone Farms Premium Beef

LLC is producing beef this week that is scheduled to begin shipping to South

Korea as early as this weekend, about a week after trade was allowed to resume

between the U.S. and South Korea, a company official said Wednesday.

The shipment will include products such as ribs, according to Jim Rogers,

Creekstone vice president for marketing.

Ribs and other bone-in beef products have been banned by South Korea since

December 2003, when the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad

cow disease, was discovered in the U.S.

South Korea partially lifted its ban on U.S. beef in September 2006 to allow

only boneless cuts from cattle under 30 months of age, but disputes over bone

fragments in U.S. shipments repeatedly shut down trade. It was in October 2007

that the disputes brought all beef trade to a halt.

The U.S. and South Korea reached a new deal in April to allow for the trade

of bone-in beef products from cattle of all ages. That deal was threatened,

though, by strong opposition in South Korea and negotiators from Seoul asked to

renegotiate. Under a new deal reached in June, the USDA agreed to certify a

labeling program to help South Korea make sure that beef imports came from

young cattle slaughter before 30 months of age.

Cattle older than 30 months are considered more susceptible to mad-cow

disease, a fatal neurological disease in cattle. People who eat tainted beef

can contract variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is a similar

transmissible spongiform encephalopathy in humans.

There was a lot of U.S. beef already approved and on the way to South Korea

when trade shut down in October. That "pipeline" beef is now being re-approved

for export, and some of it is already on its way to South Korea, USDA Secretary

Ed Schafer told Dow Jones Newswires on Wednesday.

-By Bill Tomson; Dow Jones Newswires

agriculture.com