Brussels, 17/07/2007 (Agence Europe) - Several members of the European Parliament's agriculture committee took a stance on Monday 16 July, in Brussels, in favour of a total and immediate ban on Brazilian beef imports into the EU. During the meeting of the EP agriculture committee, Irish and Scottish producers (IFA and SBCA associations) presented an alarming report on the health hazards in Brazilian farms producing meat intended for the European market. Neil Parish, British Conservative and chair of the agriculture committee, called on the European commissioners concerned to come and discuss, in September, the possibility of imposing such an embargo on Brazilian beef.
During a recent mission to Brazil, the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) discovered evidence of severe failures of food safety controls. Animal identification has not been handled in a proper way and control for foot-and-mouth disease has been found to be lacking. Inspectors also discovered failings in the Brazilian system for notifying animal movements, and that hormones and growth promoters banned in the EU were being used.
MEPs asked why countries such as the United States, Australia and Japan have set in place measures to ban Brazilian meat, whereas the EU has not yet done so. A representative from the European Commission and an official from the EU's Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) did not support the alarmist conclusions reached by the authors of the Irish report. They stressed that investigations carried out in Brazil by the FVO had shown failings, but do not justify the suspension of imports.
The EU Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations in the EU (COPA) and the General Confederation of Agricultural Cooperatives in the EU (COGECA) called for more stringent checks on Brazilian products imported into the EU. They consider that the above “findings undermine the credibility of Brazilian official checks. To maintain consumer confidence in beef in general, it is of utmost importance to ensure a harmonised system of control and traceabilty on the side of the Brazilian authorities. Full traceability means more than just controls at the slaughterhouses where meat for export is produced. Rather, it implies the participation of farmers across the whole region from which cattle for a slaughterhouse originate”, COPA and COGECA explain.
Pekka Pesonen, the general secretary of these agricultural organisations, calls on the Commission to step up the frequency of physical checks on imports of Brazilian beef. “If these serious failures are found to be widespread, the EU must be ready to introduce further measures such as a complete ban on Brazilian beef imports without hesitation”, he explains.
According to Mr Parish, the EU imported 333,000 tonnes of beef from Brazil, of which around 30,000 tonnes went to the UK. (lc)