Ireland's beef farmers, who fear they will be big losers if global trade talks finally succeed, have launched a campaign to make it harder for powerful Brazilian rivals to sell their meat in Europe.
But cattle-raisers in South America's agricultural powerhouse - Brazil is the world's biggest beef exporter - deny the claims that they fail to meet European Union standards.
Irish farmers have long been protected by high import tariffs, as well as EU subsidies, and they say a deal at the World Trade Organisation could cost them 2 billion euros ($2.7 billion) a year in lost exports.
The EU, the United States, Brazil and India kicked off a five-day meeting in Germany on Tuesday, seeking a breakthrough in the WTO's long-delayed Doha round of talks to lower barriers to trade around the planet.
The Irish Farmers Association has complained to the European Commission, the EU executive, that Brazilian ranchers are not obliged to meet the kind of standards required for EU farmers.
"What we want is for the EU to say to Brazil is: 'Ok, you can send your meat, but you must put in place the same standards, which will cost you'," IFA president Padraig Walshe said. The IFA says Brazilian beef farmers do not employ proper tagging and identification systems which can be used to trace shipments in the case of disease outbreaks. The Irish farmers also claim that Brazilian farmers use growth hormones, have inadequate disease controls and wreak environmental damage.
BRAZIL HITS BACK The head of Brazil's Beef Export Industry Association accused Irish farmers of making "false and misrepresenting" claims in a trade publication that slammed Brazil's industry.
"Brazil's commercial beef producers have been very concerned with recent publications by the Irish Farmers Journal," Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes said.
"I don't know exactly where they visited when they were down here recently, but they published reports and pictures of farms that have nothing to do with the export industry."
Growth hormones are forbidden in Brazil and although smaller Brazilian beef farmers do not practice traceability, 100 percent of the country's beef exports are traceable, he said, pointing out that a string of recent EU inspections found no problems.
Pratini de Moraes also denied Irish claims that the Amazon rainforest was being torched to clear land for cattle, saying nearly all Brazil's commercial cattle ranching took place in other parts of the vast country. Brazilian beef exports to the EU have increased by 20 percent since 2003 and accounted for 66 percent of imports into the bloc last year, despite an import tariff of 176 percent.
Irish farmers also complain they have been squeezed out of the booming Russian market by their Brazilian rivals. European trade chief Peter Mandelson has offered to cut EU farm import tariffs by about 50 percent as part of a WTO deal.
European countries with big farming interests such as France and Poland, as well as Ireland, fear he might go further. Beef is likely to be classed a "sensitive product" by Brussels, shielding it from the full force of the tariff cut, but some new export opportunities would have to be offered. A Commission spokesman said EU veterinary experts were taking the IFA's claims "very seriously".
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