John Myers Jr., Staff Reporter
AGRICULTURE MINISTER Roger Clarke has described as premature, calls from Opposition Member of Parliament (MP), Dr. St. Aubyn Bartlett, for the
reimposition of a ban on beef imported from the United States.
Minister Clarke told The Gleaner yesterday, "It doesn't work like that ... We have to remember that we want to export too, and if at the drop of a pin you are just going to ban without any clear indication, it will happen to us too. So we have to operate by international law."
Dr. Bartlett, who is the MP for Eastern St. Andrew, said in a statement on Sunday that the Minister of Agriculture should "reimpose the ban on U.S. beef imports and institute tighter restrictions, including MCOOL (Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling), in order to protect the local cattle and small ruminant industry and most importantly, the nation's health."
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Dr. Bartlett also called on the ministers of agriculture, health and commerce and industry to immediately put in place MCOOL "on all meat and meat products imported into and sold within the distributive trade in the island."
However, the Agriculture Minister countered: "It is premature; every certificate that comes in has on it the exact part of the (meat) that is coming in and the name of the plant that it is coming from, the state in the U.S.; everything is there. We do have labelling, we do know the origin of any meat product coming (into the island). That's a stipulation."
Mr. Clarke also said there were specifications on how such products must be prepared and packaged.
The call for the reimposition of a ban on beef coming from the U.S. was precipitated by reports last Friday that cattle was suspected to have contracted the brain-wasting disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), popularly referred to as mad cow disease.
