The US Agriculture Department will not temporarily ban soybean imports from countries affected by a devastating plant disease despite requests from two US farm groups, a USDA spokesman said on Monday.
The American Soybean Association and the American Farm Bureau Federation, two of the largest US farm groups, urged the USDA to ban soybean imports from Brazil, Argentina and other countries with Asian rust fungus until a government study of the disease risk was complete.
"There are no plans for this," said Jim Rogers, spokesman for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. "We will wait for the risk assessment."
USDA would not say when the risk assessment report on importing South American soybeans would be published. Industry officials have said they expect the report to be completed around mid-March or early April.
The report will determine if the United States needs more safeguards or restrictions on soy imports from infected countries, according to industry officials.
"We think it's appropriate that the risk assessment be made and there should be a halt (on imports) until then," said Terry Francl, chief economist of the American Farm Bureau.
The wind-borne Asian rust disease is prevalent in Brazil, the world's second largest soybean exporter after the United States, and to a lesser extent in Argentina.
Asian rust affects the leaves of the soybean plant, depriving it of nutrients that normally would go into seed production.
The disease, which poses no risk to consumers, reduces soybean crop yields by 80 percent.
The continental United States has never reported a case of soybean rust.
There was an isolated outbreak in small garden plots in Hawaii in 1995.
Experts estimate an introduction of the disease in the United States could cost farmers up to $7.2 billion, about half the value of the US soybean crop.
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