12 November 2007

2 minute read

North America

For American beef to be eligible for export to countries such as Japan, Korea or those in the European Union, production must be done as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Beef Export Verification (BEV) program, said Darrell Mark, UNL livestock marketing specialist.

To learn more about the requirements of these programs, the marketing opportunities available and how Processed Verified Programs (PVP) and Quality Systems Assessment (QSA) programs are used to qualify beef for export, producers can go to the International Marketing link at http://beef.unl.edu/international.shtml on UNL's Beef Cattle Production Web site.

"This allows producers to go to one spot to find all of the resources available to them," Mark said. "If producers are interested in marketing their beef internationally, they need to make sure they are correctly documenting and verifying information about the cattle, including age and source, when they are weaning their calves and before they leave their ranch."

On the Web site, producers can find archived materials from recent international beef marketing programs, university and industry publications and other resources and links to USDA sites.

"We continue to see growing demand for age- and source-verified animals," said Greg Ibach, Nebraska Department of Agriculture director. "We encourage producers to access this online material and consider whether changes to their operations could improve the marketability of their livestock, and possibly their profitability."

Source: Grand Island Independent