Heydon: 'Right call' to ban Brazilian beef exports to EU
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon has said a move to ban Brazilian beef exports to the EU is "the right call".
The comments come as imports of Brazilian beef and poultry to the EU will be suspended from Thursday (August 3).
In May, member states voted to exclude Brazil from an updated list of third countries authorised to export food-producing animals and animal products to the EU.
In order to be included on this list, the commission said Brazil must ensure compliance with EU requirements on the use of antimicrobials for the entire lifetime of the animals that the exported products originate from.
The ban would come just four months since the provisional application of the EU-Mercosur Interim Trade Agreement.
Brazil
Sinn Féin spokesperson on agriculture and food, Martin Kenny has called on Minister Heydon to clarify what will happen to Brazilian beef and poultry that is currently in circulation in Ireland when the ban comes into effect on Thursday.
“We cannot have a situation where the ban comes into effect on Thursday, but food and meat processors continue to use Brazilian beef and poultry that they imported before the ban came into effect.
“I am calling on the Minister to issue a recall on all products containing Brazilian beef and poultry meat from once the ban comes into effect and instruct meat processors and food processors to stop using these products with immediate effect," Deputy Kenny said.
When asked about the upcoming ban today, Minister Heydon did not answer what would happen to Brazilian beef and poultry already in Ireland when the ban comes into force.
However, he did say that "our food safety standards are non-negotiable".
"What’s very clear here is from this week that the importation of Brazilian beef into Europe ceases because the Brazilians have been unable to meet the SPS standards required, the food safety standards," he said.
Food safety
The minister noted that there has already been a recall of Brazilian beef previously.
128kg of Brazilian beef that contained a banned growth promoting hormone entered the Irish market last year, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) confirmed.
"Previous discussions around Mercosur focused on the environmental standards and how our farmers in Europe are at a much higher environmental standard.
"The idea of the trade deal from a European perspective was to try and bring up Brazilian standards and others around the world to those European standards.
"What was never on the table was food safety standards.
"When you get a recall of product that comes into Europe from a third country that doesn’t meet our standards, unless those countries can prove they have fixed the problem, it can’t come in here because we don’t expose European consumers to that," Minister Heydon said.
