Brazilian beef ban is lifted

The blanket ban on imports has been lifted a month after it was imposed, allowing meat from 106 Brazilian farms to supply EU markets. Imports had been suspended following successive EU reports casting doubts on traceability within the Brazilian beef industry.

Stormont agriculture committee chairman William McCrea said it is now time for the EU to start applying exacting local production and welfare standards on all food being imported, including poultry and pork products.

The Assembly member called on the local industry to build the required contacts to exploit the new gap in the market vacated by Brazilian beef.

” Whilst the developments on Brazilian beef haven't seen the complete end to imports into the European Union, it has at least highlighted the issue around the importation of food into the EU,” he said.

“I believe that the pressure should continue around the whole issue of foodstuffs which are imported into Europe from other countries.

“Huge amounts of poultry and pork products are imported into the EU, produced at standards far below that expected from local standards.

” Now that the principle has been accepted on beef production, it is time that the European Commission applied these type of production and welfare standards on all food imports.”

Ulster Farmers Union's Kenneth Sharkey welcomed the call. He said: “We have always said that any rules and regulations that are applied to local farms and local produce must also be applied to imported produce.

“Unfortunately time and time again that is something that the EU fails to do, and it means consumers are often unaware that they are consuming products from places like South America and south Asia where very often the standards are far below what is taken for granted in local farms.”

European Commission auditors are due to inspect the 106 farms.

“Our objective is to make sure that any beef that is imported to the EU from Brazil meets the same standards as local produce. We wont tolerate double standards,” Mr Sharkey added.

“In recent years well over 800,000 tonnes of Brazilian beef have been imported to the EU so this is a major reduction in Brazilian beef imports.”

Sinn Fein MEP Bairbre de Brun welcomed the news that only certain farms would export to Europe.

“Brazil's capacity to supply Europe has been decreased and this is welcome at this moment,” she said.

“Today's move will go a long way to ensure Ireland remains bluetongue-free.”

But SDLP agriculture spokesman PJ Bradley warned that the easing of restrictions would come as a shock to the beef industry.

“We were told by the EU that the ban on the import was imposed in the interest of public health and food safety,” he said.

“The findings that permitted the return of Brazilian beef have not yet been made known, but one would suspect it is part of a bigger picture in world trading terms.”