IFA Challanges Minister Over Brazilian Beef Imports
IRELAND - IFA President Padraig Walshe said today IFA and the farming community strongly support the essential biosecurity measures taken by the Minister for Agriculture to guard against the outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in Britain spreading to Ireland.
9 August 2007
2 minute read
However, the IFA President warned “Minister Mary Coughlan has lost all credibility with farmers by accepting double standards when it comes to Brazilian beef imports into the EU, which carry an inherent risk of FMD”.
“a total sham, with no effective controls on the movement of cattle between FMD restricted and unrestricted states, no reliable cattle traceability and routine cutting out of tags”.
Padraig Walshe
Padraig Walshe sharply criticised Minister Coughlan’s U-turn on the issue of import standards since her unambiguous public statement at last year’s Tullamore Show, when she singled out Brazilian beef imports and said “All recent reports by the EU Food and Veterinary Office clearly showed that … Brazil could not be judged to offer guarantees equivalent to those provided for in Community legislation”.
The Minister then demanded that Brazil, “should have their access to EU markets restricted until such time as these guarantees could be satisfactorily provided”.
The IFA President said Minister Coughlan’s recent ban on British meat imports is a strict but necessary precautionary measure to protect against FMD. “However, there is a glaring inconsistency in the Minister continuing to accept imports from Brazil where FMD is endemic. Brazil is incapable of offering satisfactory guarantees, and the EU has no effective control over the product that is imported.”
Padraig Walshe said the IFA/Farmers Journal mission to Brazil in May had exposed regionalisation as “a total sham, with no effective controls on the movement of cattle between FMD restricted and unrestricted states, no reliable cattle traceability and routine cutting out of tags”.
“Even the FVO admits that regionalisation in Brazil is a myth and that cattle only have to spend six weeks on a holding prior to slaughter to be acceptable.”
“For Minister Coughlan now to make false comparisons between regionalisation in Cooley in 2001 and regionalisation in Brazil is outrageous. She is doing a serious injustice to the huge commitment and sacrifices of farmers, Department of Agriculture staff, gardai and army personnel, and the wider community that made regionalisation effective in Cooley in 2001. All the evidence shows there is no such commitment in Brazil.”
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