The farm ministry on Monday defended itself against allegations by a weekly magazine that it encouraged farmers to feed cattle with meat-and-bone meal in the mid-1990s.

The weekly Shukan Bunshun said in its latest edition that an employee of a livestock laboratory affiliated with the ministry encouraged the use of MBM in a February 1996 article in the journal Dairy Japan.

MBM is a suspected source of mad cow disease, which is thought to cause a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease to develop in humans.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said the article by the official did not represent the ministry's position on MBM.

"The article in question was written in the official's private capacity and the agricultural ministry did not play any part in (the writing of the article)," the ministry said.

The article was published about eight years after Britain banned the use of MBM as feed for cows. Shukan Bunshun argues that it was impossible for the farm ministry official not to be aware of the risks involved in using the feed.

In 1996, it was also widely reported that mad cow disease could cause a new variant of the fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people who ate the meat of infected cows. In March 1996, the farm ministry issued a statement that imports of MBM from Britain should be avoided.

In a news conference later Monday, vice farm minister Hideaki Kumazawa said the ministry will look into why it did not ban the use of MBM in Japan despite calls for such action.

In April 1996, a group of experts suggested Japan formally ban the use of MBM. But the ministry effectively shelved discussions on the issue until December 2000.

The government imposed a legal ban on the distribution of MBM in the country only after the first case of mad cow disease was found in September.

"I believe the farm ministry was aware that in 1997 the United States legally banned the use of MBM." Kumazawa said. When asked why the farm ministry did not ban MBM in Japan for years after that, however, Kumazawa merely replied that he did not have sufficient information as to how decisions were made at that time by ministry bureaucrats.