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BY PHYLLIS JACOBS GRIEKSPOOR The Wichita Eagle The door is at least cracked for the re-opening of beef trade with South Korea and Japan, but area agribusiness leaders say they are not expecting to see exports rebound to the levels before the December 2003 discovery of mad cow disease in the U.S. "We have some product moving, but it's not very fast," said Kevin Pentz, general manager at Creekstone Farms Premium Beef in Arkansas City. "I don't think we'll see any great surge in demand." Pentz said Creekstone is running one shift and processing about 5,250 head of cattle a week. The plant employs about 750 people and specializes in premium Black Angus beef. Before the discovery of mad cow disease, Creekstone sold almost a third of its beef to Japan. Following the discovery, Japan and scores of other countries closed their borders to U.S. beef. Several months later, Creekstone invested in the equipment and training necessary to test every animal processed for the brain-wasting disease. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture refused to allow the plant to do private testing. Creekstone has sued over that ruling, and there may be a court decision in the case as early as November. Jim Mintert, a livestock market economist at Kansas State University, said the announcement last week that South Korea also will begin limited imports of U.S. beef is good news, but it's not without problems. "The Korean agreement is less restrictive with respect to age," he said. "They're allowing beef from animals younger than 30 months of age, where Japan is less than 20 months. But one major problem is this is boneless beef only, with a zero tolerance for even the smallest bone fragment. That's a tough restriction to meet." He said technology enables the measurement of extremely small quantities of any substance. "What we can hope for is that the industry will bend over backwards to meet this restriction and that gradually, over time, they can become convinced to relax the standards," he said. Mintert said it is encouraging that beef exports in 2006 are up almost 70 percent from 2005. However, exports are still 57 percent below 2003 levels. For market prices as a whole, Mintert said drought in the Great Plains is having the biggest impact as ranchers cull herds and sell off heifers rather than holding them back for breeding stock. That keeps beef from entering the expansion cycle that would be expected with today's prices, which still top $92 per hundredweight, he said. Producer Frank Harper, a Harvey County rancher and small feedlot operator, said any small progress in the effort to regain markets can be seen as a positive step. He said he hopes the trials of the last three years will ultimately pay off in an increased level of trust from consumers as they see that U.S. beef is a safe and healthy product. "I try to keep looking on the positive side of it," he said. "If we can gain a trust factor from their (Japan and South Korea) visits to our packing plants, it'll be a really good thing." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reach P.J. Griekspoor at 316-268-6660 or at pgriekspoor@wichitaeagle.com.