May 28, 2008

EU warns of expensive beef due to restrictions on imports from Brazil
  
 

Beef will be costly this year mainly because of restrictions on importing from Brazil, the main source of EU's imported beef, the EU warned on Tuesday (May 27, 2008).

The EU has implemented stricter import rules early this year, which limited the number of Brazilian farms that meet EU's animal health standards and could export to the EU.

The EU was worried about food-and-mouth disease (FMD) and the restrictions were imposed due to fears that Brazil has not conducted adequate checks to ensure that their cattle were FMD-free.

EU rules demand that cattle must be disease-free and located in an FMD-free state 90 days before slaughter. The slaughter must also take place in a EU-approved facility, and only matured and de-boned meat could be exported to the EU.

Recent tight cattle supply from Brazil and Argentina is part of the reasons why beef prices are high, according to the European Commission.

Brazil felt that the rules infringe on free trade and has warned that it may file a complaint to the WTO.