hankyoreh

The team sent to the US to investigate the recent discovery of mad cow disease (BSE) there is coming home after a trip that amounted to nothing more than sightseeing. In dispatching the team on Apr. 30, the government talked about how it would be able to examine whether US beef was being produced under safe conditions, and how it would not be too late to reconsider halting imports if their findings gave reason to. But the team was not even granted access to the farm where the BSE was found and the US government failed to persuade the farm owners to open their operations to the Korean investigation team. While we must tolerate the farm’s refusal to allow an on-site investigation, it is pathetic to see the government push ahead with importing US beef.
To examine whether US beef is truly safe, we need to know the system for managing the cattle’s feed and history. There is no way of doing so without visiting and examining the actual farm. Yet the government team was unable to get anywhere near it. The reason given was that an examination was impossible without the approval of the owner. After some pleading, they managed to arrange a written question-and-answer exchange, with a US Department of Agriculture official serving as a go-between. It was a typical hoodwinking ploy. The government then turned around and said that an interview had been held with the owner at a third location.
The trip may have been nothing more than a waste of taxpayer money, but we did learn something from it. We learned that the South Korean management provisions purportedly secured through additional negotiations with the US in 2008 are of no use whatsoever, and that we need to rectify the historically unequal import hygiene conditions that are currently in place. It is these conditions that hampered the team, with their vague wording about how South Korea “may” investigate. No other country has agreements that prevent it from halting imports or quarantine inspections when BSE is discovered, or from even verifying the feeding and history management system in the place of origin. Our hygiene conditions with Australia, New Zealand, and Canada all provide for an immediate halt to exports and quarantine inspections in cases of BSE. Indonesia ordered an immediate suspension of US beef imports after the case was discovered.
We need to revise the vague wording in the supplementary provisions about how South Korea “may” halt imports when BSE is discovered, changing it to an unambiguous “will halt.” With the current provisions only stating “may,” there is no specific procedure for a halt, leaving them toothless. We also need to remove the provisions about importing beef from cattle older than 30 months once citizen trust has been restored. These are what the US has used in pressing for an all-out expansion. Now that the dangers of beef from these older cattle has been confirmed, we should maintain that beef is only to be imported from cattle aged under 30 months. Korean authorities must be granted guaranteed access to farms where BSE is discovered. The investigating team may have been a sham, but we should at least take its lessons to heart.
　
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