Brazil eyes top spot in beef exports

INSTEAD of declaring war on “Zebu” beef, Irish farmers might be better off to invest in these hump-backed cattle.

Last autumn, DNA tests commissioned by IFA detected "zebu" beef in 12 out of 53 samples of beef being sold as Irish.

This meant that the beef came from outside of Europe, probably from Argentina or Brazil. Brazil is home to the world's largest cattle herd of about 180 million head, of which some 85% are the Nelore bred related to the white, humped backed bos indicus Zebu cattle from India.