More Brazil beef shipments to be blocked in EU

The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) has requested from the government to intervene with the European Commission to block any deal that would increase beef imports to the EU from Brazil.

Following an EU ban in 2008, Brazil's efforts to supply beef into Europe had been severely hampered. The ban was inspired by the IFA when it launched an investigation in Brazil, which exposed a lack of controls in the industry.

Brazil was exporting more than 180,000 tonnes of beef into the EU, which was displacing Irish beef. The EU later lifted the ban but said beef should come only from inspected farms. Now only 1,900 farms are allowed to export here, a major drop from the 9,218 farms in the business before the ban.

In a weekend statement, IFA president John Bryan, who led the investigating team to Brazil, said opening the trade was potentially very damaging for the Irish beef sector and Irish economic recovery.