Japan has halted beef imports from a Cargill plant in Schuyler, Neb., after American authorities failed to confirm that beef from the plant without proper documents met Japan’s animal age requirements.

Cargoes of beef from the plant, which arrived Tokyo on November 22, included a package without quarantine documents, and the health and farm ministries asked the U.S. authorities to confirm the age of the cattle concerned, reports Reuters. The import halt came after U.S. authorities said they could not confirm the beef met Japan's requirements of cattle aged 20 months or younger, the two ministers said in a joint statement.

Japan and U.S. governments were currently in talks on relaxing the age of cattle for U.S. beef imports to Japan and the timing and other details were not yet fixed, a health ministry official said.

Source: Reuters