Agriculture Department reviewing status of infected cow

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman on Thursday said a veterinarian's records showed that the Washington state cow that was found to have mad cow disease last December "was a downer," but added that the Agriculture Department's inspector general is investigating whether it really was.

House Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., and ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., wrote Veneman Tuesday that "the co-manager of the slaughter plant and two other eyewitnesses state that the cow stood and walked on the day of slaughter." They also wrote that the cow was tested for bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- the formal name for mad cow disease -- as part of a testing contract the plant had with USDA, not because it was a downer. "If this information is true," Davis and Waxman wrote, "it could have serious implications for both the adequacy of the national BSE surveillance system and the credibility of the USDA."

At the annual USDA Agricultural Outlook Conference, Veneman also confirmed that the Japanese government has asked the United States to reopen its borders to imports of Japanese beef, which is banned in the United States due to the presence of BSE in Japan. Japan and most other importers of U.S. beef have banned U.S. beef products since Dec. 23. Veneman said she had no evidence of linkage between the Japanese request that the United States reopen its borders and Japan's willingness to import U.S. beef.

USDA Chief Economist Keith Collins told the conference Thursday that U.S. farm exports are expected to rise to $59 billion in 2004, the highest since the all-time record of $60 billion in 1996, but half a billion dollars less than USDA was projecting before foreign countries banned beef imports due to the case of mad cow disease. Collins said Americans would have to eat 5 percent more beef to absorb the beef that would normally be exported.

Collins also said USDA expects the bans on U.S. poultry exports due to avian flu to be short term and that the bans on beef would create more export opportunities for pork and poultry. But he also warned the agricultural audience of growing competition from Brazil and Argentina in soybeans, from China and former Soviet countries in coarse grain and from India and the former Soviet countries in wheat. Collins noted that Brazil has increased production of cotton, soybeans, broilers, pork, corn and beef by 25 to 75 percent since the late 1990s.