There’s good news for Canadian beef producers, as Japan has lifted the last of their restrictions on Canadian beef imports.

The move comes 16 years after Japan stopped imports because of BSE or mad cow disease in Canada, but they then began to gradually accept animals who were younger than 20 and later 30 months of age.

BC Cattlemen’s Association General Manager Kevin Boon says having no age restrictions will make things easier for exporters.

“When you have age restrictions then it means that a lot more work goes into separating and segregating that product,” he said. “If something happens where there was inadvertently some product that got in there that was over 30 months, they could deem the entire load as not fitting the qualifications for export.”

Japan bought almost $215 million worth of Canadian beef last year, and Boon says the cattle industry has come a long way since 2003.

“Feed additives that we were allowed to utilize were deemed to be the carriers,” Boon added. “Since that time, there’s been restrictions put on to the feed and so that in and of itself was part of it. Then we also had a very stringent surveillance program where we’re actually looking for the disease.”

He says the Japanese restrictions were based on an old science, and that there is a very low risk that animals older than 30 months would become infected or that the disease can be passed on to humans.

Boon noted since 2003, there have been about 17 cases of BSE in Canada, saying that the disease, if it does occur, is very rare.