Brazil’s anti-Irish beef rant

IT’S not often that world superpowers worry about competition from little Ireland.

However, we punch well above our weight in agriculture, and specifically in beef — which explains why the head of the world’s biggest beef industry recently lost his temper and bad-mouthed us in public, directing his over-the-top comments specifically at IFA president Padraig Walshe.

Ireland can boast the best beef exports in the northern half of the world, but we are dwarfed by southern giants, and it is Brazil which dominates, regularly sending nearly two million tons around the world.