AR-News: (US-wa) Cattle slaughter rules yield few easy answers

[Animalconcerns]

[from USA Today]

TACOMA, Wash. — Russell Smeed likes his cattle big.

He is a buyer for Masami Foods Inc., a beef and pork processor in Klamath
Falls, Ore., that until recently sold its meat to the Japanese, who —
unlike lean-loving U.S. consumers — like steak well-marbled. "Our beef are
so big and fat, they're just rectangles," he says.

That all changed with the discovery in December of the first U.S. case of
mad cow disease. Japan immediately stopped all imports of American beef,
and Smeed's company is scrambling to find U.S. markets for its rich steaks.

But right now he's scrambling for something different: answers. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture is holding five workshops across the country to
explain sweeping changes to the rules governing cattle slaughter and
processing that were announced Dec. 30. Smeed and about 70 fellow meat
producers turned out recently on a rainy Tacoma morning to get the scoop.

These aren't academic questions. As the people on the front lines of the
nation's meat production system, they have to know how to comply with
these rules. The answers they hear could spell the difference between
profit and loss, success or bankruptcy. 

full story:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-02-09-beef-rules_x.htm

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