*EPF414 03/21/2002
Text: Agriculture Chief Calls Russia Poultry Ban Unwarranted
(Veneman says U.S. team in Russia to work on agreement) (2200)

Russia's ban on U.S. poultry exports is unwarranted, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman says.

In March 20 remarks to an agricultural group in Washington, Veneman said U.S. officials in Russia have not been able to reach an agreement to lift the ban but are remaining in the country for further discussions with Russia's agriculture ministry.

The United States sells $600 million worth of poultry to Russia, its largest poultry market, she said.

Veneman added that Russia's restrictions are inconsistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) requirements. Russia is negotiating to join the WTO.

The United States recently negotiated for Japan to lift its ban on poultry products, she said.

She added that the United States also recently reached agreement with China on its biotechnology regulations. China -- a new WTO member -- is obliged to ensure that its regulations "are based on sound science and do not become trade barriers," she said.

Veneman expressed doubt that the European Union (EU) would lift its moratorium on biotech products in October -- as some EU officials have indicated. "Even if they do lift it in October there's a real question about whether they will actually get approvals [of new products] done," she said.

Veneman said the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is working closely with other federal agencies on border information systems to ensure that "what comes into this country and who comes into this country are things we want."

She added that homeland security includes an effective food security system involving meat safety inspectors and inspectors looking for invasive plant matter and insects.

She said recent rumors about cattle with potential foot-and-mouth disease in the United States "were absolutely false."

Following are excerpts of Veneman's remarks:

(begin text)

Remarks by Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman
To the Food Group
Washington, D.C. March 20, 2002

Let me turn now to another issue you raised in the introduction and that is the homeland security issue. This is an issue, a term that we didn't really have in our vocabularies seven months ago. We didn't talk about homeland security. But in USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] we were doing a lot of what we are doing now in homeland security whether it was trying to stop FMD [foot-and-mouth disease] from coming into this country or keeping pests and diseases out or protecting the safety of the food supply or conducting new research that supports those. USDA has been very engaged in protecting our food supply. But now it's different. Now we're protecting it under the guise of homeland security as well where we are not just worried about unintentional threats but we are also worried about intentional threats to the food supply.

We increased our resources in this area. The President authorized another $328 million in defense supplemental appropriations for USDA in the homeland security area. Then we have another $146 million in the FY [fiscal year] 2003 budget to bolster USDA programs in this whole arena.

Our Deputy Secretary Jim Moseley has been overseeing this area. We have created a homeland security council, which is looking over our systems as well as the whole food chain. Another area where we are really trying to bring the whole food chain together from production to processing -- from transportation to retailing to determine with all of you where are the vulnerabilities. Where can we work together to make sure we have the most effective system we possibly can to protect our food system. We continue to work very closely on this effort; working with the Office of Homeland Security, with Governor Ridge and his staff we look at the food issues.

One of the things this whole issue of Homeland Security has done is that it has brought together a whole government wide review of various aspects of government.

You've read in the newspaper the last couple of days -- there have been discussions about border agencies and border security. The fact of the matter is that what we want to do as an administration is to make sure our border agencies are as linked as possible so we can have information; so we can share information; so we that we can make sure that what comes into this country and who comes into this country are things we want to come into this country. So on the USDA side, of course, we have our APHIS [Animal Plant Health Inspection Service] inspectors watching for animal and plant matter or insects or invasive species and we have our FSIS [Food Safety Inspection Service] folks looking for meat safety problems and we are working very closely with agencies like Customs to get our information systems to talk to each other so that we know from Customs what's coming in and we can share that information and have a better inspection system overall.

The whole issue of border security is one that has been discussed interagency and at a Cabinet level in terms of where we are going to go with this.

There has been a lot of discussion on another subject I know is near and dear to your hearts and that is what is going to happen with the food agencies. There's been discussion for a long time about should there be a single food safety agency? In my view that decision shouldn't be made in the context of homeland security but we ought to be looking at how do we coordinate our food safety activities. It shouldn't necessarily center on whether we need a new agency but how do we better protect our food supply over all. So we have been working very closely with HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] and particularly FDA. We now have in Les Crawford who is deputy Commissioner of the FDA [Food and Drug Administration], someone who knows agriculture very well; someone who has served as an FSIS administrator and someone, who I believe, can really help with the integration of our programs to make sure we are cooperating every way possible.

I believe there is a lot of reason to have meat safety inspection at USDA because we have animal safety and health in USDA and so many of the issues we are encountering today -- whether it is emerging pathogens or it's the threat of BSE [bovine spongiform encephalopathy] in other countries -- relate to animal health, to human health and the inspection and the safety of the meat supply. I think all of these issues need to be considered. We are working with HHS. [Health and Human Services Secretary] Tommy Thompson and I have talked about areas where we can cooperate in cross-training inspectors, particularly when we have both USDA and FDA inspectors in the same plants. So we are looking at all of these issues to determine how we can better make government work together and I think the homeland security areas have given more impetus to make these things happen.

Last week we also had a rumor floating around the Chicago Merc[antile] about cattle with potential foot and mouth disease (FMD). These rumors were absolutely false -- they did have an impact on markets but we conduct about 800 tests per year for animal diseases such as FMD. This one happened to get ahead of itself. People in a feed lot somehow saw that the cattle had lesions and put a rumor into the market which never should have gotten there before tests were conducted and completed. So it's an unfortunate circumstance but again, we are constantly testing. We are constantly reviewing whether it's for FMD, or Medflies or citrus canker or clementines. These systems are sometimes taken for granted because they work so well.

I want to talk about one other area that I like to call 'trade-troubleshooting' because it seems to be taking a lot of our time these days.

We're finding we are encountering a number of issues related to trade and we are devoting a lot of attention to what I would call market maintenance. Let me give you a couple of examples.

We've had for the last 20 days a ban on our poultry exports to Russia. This might not seem too important to some of you but the fact is this is our largest poultry export market. It is about a $650 million market but if we were to lose the market the ripple effects would be more than that. Poultry is about 20 percent of our total exports to Russia.

We have had a technical team in Russia for the last 10 days or so. We had hoped we would have had some agreement by now but unfortunately that is not the case. I can tell you that this issue has received so much attention from every level of government -- from Secretary Powell to Secretary Evans to Ambassador Zoellick, to Condi Rice because we wanted to get this issue resolved as quickly as possible. We have thoroughly investigated Russia's complaints and determined they do not warrant this ban. Nevertheless, we've taken some steps to address some of their concerns.

We believe they are trying to impose conditions on us that they do not impose on their own industry. Yesterday I had a conversation -- through an interpreter -- with my counterpart by telephone and I was hopeful we could have resolution of this issue by today. That didn't happen. I just got word before I came here that the Ambassador met with Agriculture Minister again today. They have now agreed that the technical people will continue to meet. In other words, our folks were going to come home today. They will continue to meet and hopefully come to some agreement so we can get this trade moving again.

We believe their action is absolutely unwarranted. It is inconsistent with the obligations if they are going to become and they are negotiating to become members of the WTO. So this is one of our market maintenance issues.

We've had poultry issues with Japan. And we just were able to negotiate with the Japanese to open up that market to our poultry. We've had biotech issues in this area of what we call market maintenance. As you know we have reached, what we hope to be, a very good agreement with China on their biotech regulations. This was a $1 billion market for our soybeans last year, one that we want to maintain. We want to make sure that we do everything we can to ensure we can continue to ship our soybeans and other products to China and that their regulations do not become an impediment and a trade barrier.

They are now members of the WTO. They have an obligation to make sure their regulations are based on sound-science and do not become trade barriers.

We've also continued to work on the EU biotech labeling regulations, their nonapprovals and traceability. They are continuing their moratorium on biotech products. They've said they are going to lift this moratorium in October, but we've heard that before.

Even if they do lift it in October there's a real question about whether they will actually get approvals done. So they are also moving forward on the traceability and labeling issues. This legislation is now in the European Parliament and could be ready for final approval by October as well. So we are seeking changes in the current proposal, but it is a difficult one and we are not too optimistic.

We've also had a recent issue with Costa Rica all of a sudden deciding they weren't going to let our rice in despite the fact we've had ships on the water and they just had a ship in the port they are now going to tell to leave, without unloading.

We are having discussions with the Ambassador here, with the Ag Minister by telephone, and pursuing a very aggressive stance on this as well. There is absolutely no reason for them turning away our rice. Their dispute about how it should be distributed is really their issue and shouldn't impact trade.

Again, we are making extra efforts to ensure we can resolve these kinds of issues.

We are also very, very pleased with the kind of response we've gotten from our sister agencies on these ag trade issues. Whether it's USTR [U.S. Trade Representative], [Department of] Commerce, and the NSC [National Security Council]. We're very pleased we've been able to work so cooperatively to keep these markets open for our farmers and ranchers.

We have also a whole range of larger trade initiatives. As you know, we launched a new round of trade negotiations in Doha. We were very pleased with the outcome. We are trying to finalize Trade Promotion Authority as you know and we have a whole host of bilateral and regional trade agreements we are working on.

I've tried to give you an overview of what is happening. Hopefully it is helpful. I want to thank you for having me here today for letting me join you on National Agriculture Day as we celebrate the importance of our farmers and ranchers and indeed our whole food.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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