The government and the Liberal Democratic Party on Friday approved using public funds to buy old cattle that farmers cannot sell because of repercussions from the outbreak of mad cow disease, government sources said.
The government plans to spend 20 billion yen to purchase 44,000 old milk cows. It will pay 40,000 yen per dairy cow and 50,000 yen per head of beef cattle through industry associations of livestock farmers and dairy farmers.
The final prices will be determined through further talks between relevant government ministries.
In Japan, cows whose milk yields have deteriorated due to age have been butchered and sold on the meat market. But since a case of mad cow disease was detected in Chiba in September, consumers have shunned beef, particularly domestic varieties.
The cattle to be purchased by the government will be kept by the industry associations for the time being and then slaughtered for sale on the market after testing for the disease, the sources said.
The first mad cow was confirmed in Japan on Sept. 10 at a farm in Shiroi, Chiba Prefecture. Two more cows have since been found with the disease.
A variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, which has killed more than 100 people in Europe, is believed to be caused by eating BSE-infected meat products.