The Japanese market has become a high value market for Canadian beef because of the middle class and upper class population that value our high end product.

Starting this week, frozen Canadian beef moving into Japan will pay more in tariffs going from 38.5% to 50%.  It’s a concern since import tariffs for countries like Australia and Mexico are far less and remain the same.

Dan Darling, president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association says Japan will take and pay premiums for offal cuts that we tend not to use here.

He says we need to find out the reason for the increase and see if there’s a way around it.

"We're going to continue to push our government, either to push to get this TPP deal through with 11 countries or work on a bilateral deal."

Darling notes they continue to work with government to get trade deals made that will benefit the agriculture economy.