‘Very welcome news,’ cattlemen’s association says of Japan lifting beef restriction

Mar 31, 2023

After 20 years, Canadian beef producers will have full access to the Japanese market.

This will come as excellent news for Saskatchewan producers, according to Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association CEO Grant McLellan — especially since Japan is the third-biggest beef importer in the world.

“We feel very good about it. I mean, this is 20 years in the making that we finally get to see the final vestiges of some of those restrictions and trade blockages from Canada to Japan,” he said.

“We’ve seen even in the face of those challenges that Japan is our second-largest export market for Canadian beef. I know that we exported — I think in 2022 — $520 million in beef products, which even that was an 18 per cent increase over the previous year and 2021. So it’s definitely huge news, very welcome news.”

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.