Yoshihisa Godo,
Professor, Meiji Gakuin University, Japan
There are nearly 60,000 breeders of beef cattle in Japan1. They play an essential role in the meat industry and create important job opportunities in rural areas. Most cattle breeders are small-sized family...
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Yoshihisa Godo
Professor, Meiji Gakuin University, Japan
INTRODUCTION
Although Japan is the third largest beef importing country in the world (US Department of Agriculture, Livestock and Poultry: World Markets and Traders), with imports accounting for nearly 60% of domestic beef...
Following former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) death on Thursday (July 30), Taiwan’s agriculture chief has vowed to realize the late head of state's unfulfilled dream of transforming the country's beef industry.
Lee, who had earned degrees in agricultural economics in Taiwan, Japan, and the U.S., had been committed to revolutionizing the island country’s beef sector by breeding Wagyu — Japanese beef cattle known for their prime quality meat.
Lee discovered that 19 head of cattle on Taipei’s Yangmingshan had been certified to be Tajima (但馬牛) cows, a bloodline of the Japanese Black breed believed to have been exported to Taiwan during Japanese colonial rule, wrote UDN. The cattle were transported to a farm in Hualien for cultivation.
According to Chen Bao-ji (陳保基), former minister of the Council of Agriculture (MOA), Lee had planned to use them to develop a Taiwanese breed of Wagyu — or Yuanxing (源興牛) — by means of molecular breeding technologies. The effort enlisted expertise from National Taiwan University, National Ilan University, and Japan, Chen said.
Read more here.