Video: Brazilian beef export chief predicts EU return 'within months'
The president of the Brazilian Beef Exporters Association (ABIEC), Roberto Perosa, has told Agriland he expects Brazilian beef to be back in the EU market within the coming months.
In an exclusive interview with Agriland from Sao Paulo, ABIEC president, Roberto Perosa, had a message for Irish beef farmers worried that Brazilian beef could undermine prices if it regains access to the EU market.
Perosa said: "We can tell them don't worry, because we are not focusing on selling to the European Union at all.
"We are focusing on Asia, where they don't produce, and we have space and room for Irish beef and for British beef. We are in a global market.
"One thing that is very important to say - we want to complement the local production. We do not want to compete at the supermarkets with you. We just want to complement the industry needs for ground beef and for processed beef."
Agriland asked Perosa where Brazil would target its beef in the European market if access is restored and whether it would be chasing higher-value or lower-value cuts.
He said: "That's an important question because the type of our production - it's very different, the animals are very different.
"The breeds of the animals are very different from Brazil and the European Union and so our target is to supply the industry in your countries, so we are not targeting to compete on the supermarket directly to the people.
"We are trying to provide enough beef so your industry can process the beef, and you need the lean beef.
"You have a lot of good beef, but you need the lean beef to blend and make hamburgers, meatballs, etc, and we have this beef, and so we're not competing with you directly to the market."
According to the Brazilian Beef Exporters' Association, it represents 99% of the companies that export beef from Brazil.
Perosa also detailed the the scale of the Brazilian beef industry.
"We produce about 12 million tonnes of beef in Brazil, and we have a consumption of about 8 million so we export around 3.5 to 4 million tonnes of beef to the whole world.
"We export to more than 177 countries around the globe," he added.
Mercosur deal
Agriland also asked Perosa how Brazil reacted when it learned that beef exports to Europe would be suspended.
He said: "We elaborated a protocol within the private sector and with the government.
"So we will implement this new protocol and we think with this protocol we will be able to export again to Europe in the next months or maybe year.
"We are asking our government to start negotiations with the authorities from the European Union, so we can have a waiver, we can have a new time of implementing this protocol, and then we will not interrupt the commercial negotiations between the two blocs."
EU access
Agriland pressed Perosa on whether he is confident Brazilian beef will get the green light to return to the EU within the next year.
He said: "Yeah, I think so. I think it's a political decision, and I also know that the European Union is not producing as much beef as they would like to, and so they will need to support their consumers with beef from somewhere and Brazil is the only country capable of producing this amount of beef.
"So we are open to discuss, and we also would like to say that we want to export beef that complements the local production.
"We do not want to compete directly with the local production. We want just to complement the local production".
Irish beef in Brazil
Perosa also sees an opportunity for premium Irish beef in the Brazilian market.
"We import and export, so that's the way I think it's the best way for the whole globe to understand how we can interact with each other, so we buy things, we sell things.
"I think Europe should think in the same way that they could buy things from us and also sell things."
Agriland put the question directly to Perosa: could Brazil become a new export market for Ireland’s premium Angus and Hereford beef?
He said: "Well, you can imagine that Brazil is a country with more than 200 million people so we have all kinds and all types of people here that want to eat all types and all kinds of beef.
"So if you have a good beef, you can export to us. We don't put any problem on your beef, it's the market that will decide if you will be able to export or not, not a governmental rule or something like that.
"So we are open to that, and we hope that also Ireland and the UK and the European Union are open to our beef."
Perosa said that before the suspension, Brazil was exporting 5% of its production to Europe.
"We support the global security on food, so I think it's important that you have access to this beef to complement your own production in European Union.
"I think it's a global market that embraces everyone: the Irish beef, the UK, the British beef, and also the European beef and the Brazil beef, we can work together around the globe."
He added: "What I think is very important is to say that we have all the sanitary issues solved in Brazil.
"We have a revolution here in Brazil, and so I think it's unfair with Brazil that we do not have access to the European market."
US market
According to the president of the Brazilian Beef Exporters Association, he also views the US market as an opportunity for Brazilian exporters.
He said: "If we have one region that is having a deficit of producing beef, we can supply this market and another time that they have a surplus, we can just go to another market so we're not taking over the markets. We're just supplementing.
"We are helping people to continuously eat beef, and that's the vision that Brazil has."
