Brazilian beef back on the menu
Posted, November 27, 2009 @ 00:00
Brazilian beef back on the menu
Strasbourg, 25th November 2009 -- Conservative MEP Julie Girling has urged the European Commission to step up their checks on imports of Brazilian beef after it has emerged that many farms licenced to export to the European Union are still not meeting the required traceability standards.
Two years ago the European Union placed a ban on beef coming from Brazil after the EU Food and Veterinary Office (FAO) found that there were severe deficiencies in the traceability and identification of cattle in the country. Prior to the ban over 300,000 tonnes of beef was entering the EU from Brazil.
The European Commission now operates a system of licencing individual farms for export to the EU only if they meet the required standards and over 1,000 farms now have licences. However, the EU FVO recently inspected twelve of these farms and found that six of them were still failing to meet the standards. Failings included a lack of tagging, incorrect paperwork or poor records of movements.
Julie Girling said,
"Any West Country farmer will tell you that these are not minor failings, and if discovered here the farmer would be very quickly hauled up before a court. We can not afford to allow imports from a country where foot and mouth disease is widespread and which doesn't meet the standards that we require. Brazilian farmers do not have to meet anywhere near the stringent rules that West Country farmers do but they still fail to meet the watered down assurances that we ask for.
"The Commission must take its responsibilities far more seriously. Either Brazilian beef is fully traceable and fully identifiable or it shouldn't come in. This is not about protecting our markets, but about ensuring that we know exactly where our meat has come from.and provide west Country farmers with a level playing field"
"I was astonished to hear Graham Watson , Liberal Democrat MEP representing the South West, suggest in the debate that we should solve the problem by giving up eating meat completely and becoming vegetarian. He also suggested it would be a good idea to provide help to Brazilian farmers to bring them up to European standards. This is an insult to hard working livestock farmers battling to keep the British Beef industry going and he should be ashamed of himself