Beef import ban unrealistic
In EU Agriculture Commissioner Fischer Boel’s home country, they have found that nine out of 10 Danes suffering from multi-antibiotic resistant bacterial infections got them from foreign meat.
The institute’s researchers said bacteria levels could be up to seven times more resistant to antibiotics than those found in Danish meat products.
Here, Irish farmers fear that their export markets will be taken by competitors from outside the EU, who can produce at lower cost by not observing strict EU hygiene standards.
Denmark has a similar problem, observing stricter regulations about the use of antibiotics in food production than most other countries, but over-run by foreign meat imports which scientists have now linked to bacterial infections, which were fatal in some cases.
These findings on the Agriculture Commissioner’s doorstep could lead to a clampdown on imports from outside the EU.
However, Irish cattle farmers shouldn’t hold out false hopes for a ceiling on South American beef imports into the EU.
Instead, they should concentrate on becoming more competitive, and making the most of an expected 10-year period of EU beef scarcity.
The view from Brussels is that the EU beef industry remains highly protected, by significant import barriers.
Most of the Brazilian beef that comes in is “out-of-quota”, with exporters paying a levy of more than 3,000 per tonne, plus a 12% tariff, before it can land in the EU.
But production costs are so low in Brazil that they can afford the levies, and the specific farm and feedlot regulations, abattoir regulations and government controlled recording systems demanded by the EU, and still make a profit, even though it’s mostly high value cuts which are sent to Europe, and buyers must be found for the rest of the carcase.
These factors, and any further clampdowns by the EU authorities to improve the safety of imported meats, will limit the growth of Brazilian imports.
And animal health issues, political developments or currency exchange fluctuations could quickly cut off South American supplies at any time, and leave the EU very short of beef.
If the EU puts further obstacles in the path of South American and other non-EU beef exporters, consumers in Europe may have to do without beef, or may turn their back on it, if a shortage drives up prices.
EU farmers can supply only 95% of the EU’s requirements, and that figure may shrink due to a number of factors. Some EU cattle farmers cannot survive the removal of 1.07 per kg of carcass beef produced in the EU, which they were paid in the form of cattle premia. It will still be paid as a Single Payment, but cattle farming without it will be uneconomical for many.
The more than 60% of the EU-25 beef production which comes from the dairy herd continues to shrink, due to rising dairy cow yields.
Over the next 10 years EU beef production is predicted to fall by 0.3% to 2% per year, perhaps reducing supply by 1m tonnes per year.
Production may concentrate in areas like Ireland, if farmers here can fully exploit our natural advantages, and our exporters can position their produce strategically against imported beef.
That should be the target, rather than getting over-excited about Brazilian beef. If Irish farmers don’t do it, the new Central European member states are ready to come to the rescue of an EU beef industry which is running out of material.
Farmers here should note the emergence of Poland as a beef producer. While Brazil sent 3,000 extra tons of beef to the UK in the first six months of 2005, Poland sent 2,000 tonnes.
In the long term, the big threat to Ireland’s beef industry could come in trucks from the east, not ships from the west.
