February 14, 2008

Brazil confirms uninspected beef shipments to the EU

Brazil's Minister of Agriculture Reinhold Stephanes admitted Wednesday that some of Brazil's beef exports to the EU did not go through proper sanitary inspections.

This was believed to have compounded the embargo on Brazilian beef by the EU last week.

Stephanes explained that slaughterhouses had exported inspected and uninspected beef before the EU's new importing rules for the product became valid on February 1, 2008.

The minister points the blame back to 1995 when the Brazilian government signed an agreement with the EU, accepting conditions that it was not yet ready to fulfill.

Among the 2,700 farms listed as eligible beef exporters at the time, only 600 met all the tracking requirements established by the bloc, he clarified.

The ministry will present Thursday in Brussels a list of farms that are eligible to export beef to the EU. Although the bloc insisted on limiting the initial number of farms to 300, Stephanes is confident that the number can be raised to 700.