Wichita ? With Japan moving to resume U.S. beef imports from animals no older than 20 months, Kansas stands to benefit because most of its cattle are slaughtered by that age, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday.

“We would clearly have no problem meeting that standard. … We are there already,” Sebelius told The Associated Press on the eve of her nine-day trade mission to Japan.

Meatpackers primarily process fed cattle at their plants in Kansas that will be graded prime, choice or select. Those animals are typically younger, in good health and have no visible flaws.

Tokyo banned all U.S. beef from entering Japan after the discovery in December 2003 of mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE) in a Holstein cow in Washington state.

It has demanded the United States institute blanket testing for cows before allowing resumption of trade.

People who eat products containing the BSE protein can contract a rare but fatal disease similar to BSE called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

American agricultural officials have balked at blanket testing, calling it too expensive and unnecessary. They also say the tests are reliable only on cattle 30 months old or older. The European standard for reliable testing is 24 months and older.

Japan showed signs of softening its stance earlier this month when the state-appointed Food Safety Commission announced the country could import meat from untested cows 20 months old or younger without endangering public health.

That bodes especially well for Kansas, which sold $171.1 million of beef products to Japan before the ban. Japan last year was the biggest customer for U.S. beef, purchasing $1.2 billion of beef products.

“One of the features of beef in Japan is that Kansas beef is actually marketed as Kansas beef and Japanese responded very well to that kind of niche marketing,” Sebelius said.

Japan also is the state’s second-largest export market, buying $500 million of Kansas goods and services.

“We want to do everything we can to say: ‘Here we are from Kansas, we are here to assure you that we got the safest and most secure food supply in the world,’ and put any pressure we can on these continuing discussions and negotiations so the market gets open again,” Sebelius said.

While in Japan, Sebelius plans to participate in the Midwest U.S.-Japan Assn. annual meeting, where she will be a speaker.