Abstract

Interviews were held with National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Association (NFACA), Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and New Zealand Meat Board staff to describe current beef traceability systems operating in Japan following the BSE incident there in 2001. Some suggested actions for the New Zealand beef industry to become more competitive against domestically produced beef are described from a traceability perspective. It is concluded that there is no sustainable, complete (from farm to consumer) beef traceability systems being operated in Japan, not only by domestic producers or retailers, but also by overseas companies. Domestic traceability systems are either facing financial problems (NFACA system) or functional problems (MAFF system). This means that if New Zealand adopts a farm to consumer traceability system in the Japanese market, it will be the pioneer and will be recognised, as "clean and green", not only by nuance, but also in practice by the Japanese consumer. The main problem for New Zealand adopting such a traceability system in the Japanese market is balancing anticipated expenses versus expected financial return to the New Zealand beef producer.

T, Ozawa, N Lopez-Villalobos, and HT Blair

Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 63, Queenstown, 49-52, 2003