05/05/05 Tyson official on japan:  Got water

05/05/05 Tyson official on japan: Got water

Washington Ag May 5, 2005 Tyson Foods President Dick Bond says the world's largest producer of animal protein believes it will still be months before Japan and South Korea re-open their markets to U.S. beef. Bond: "Exports to Japan and South Korea will probably not start until November of December of this year." Tyson's International President Greg Lee says there is no doubt the inability to export beef to Japan is hurting the company's bottom line. Lee: "South Korea and Japan, they still represent 65 plus percent of the market so you still have one-billion dollars worth of sales out there that we can't get at." Tyson executives briefed reporters this week on the company's second quarter results which saw profits dip by 44 million dollars compared to the second quarter of last year, a drop of over 35 percent. One of Tyson's beef plants is located near Pasco. The Washington Department of Ecology has set up a Web page where people willing to temporarily transfer their water rights to someone else may post the availability of their water and those looking for water may use the site to list their water needs. Since anyone can place information on the site Ecology cannot verify the validity of any rights that get listed. You can access the site by going to WashingtonDrought dot org and then clicking on Washington Water Exchange. I'm Bob Hoff.
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