Brazilian beef imports into the EU will be banned from today following the failure of officials to agree on a safe list of farms in Brazil, the world's biggest meat exporter.
The move was welcomed by Irish farm organisations, which had lobbied for the ban, claiming Brazilian beef was not subject to the same stringent health and safety standards that applied in the EU.
The Brazilian beef information service pointed out there was not a total ban on the product, and said there was merely a delay in implementing approval of the farms that will be allowed to export.
EU health commissioner Markos Kyprianou said Brazil had failed to come forward with a list of 300 farms that it could approve for exporting beef to Europe.
"There is no positive list [ of approved farms] for the time being . . . at this stage there will be no holdings authorised to export [ beef] to the EU," he said.
"But of course this can change in the next few days. But yes, as of January 31, there will be no list."
The decision to introduce a ban, at least temporarily, follows sustained lobbying by Irish and British farmers, who have been alarmed at increasing imports from Brazil in recent years.
In a recent report the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) alleged Brazilian farmers did not face strict standards like EU producers on tagging and rules governing the movement of animals.
The IFA report called for a total ban on imports, although Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan initially did not support a ban, insisting at a Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels that Brazilian beef was "safe to eat".
In December the European Commission said it would tighten restrictions on imports of beef from Brazil by approving just 300 of the several thousand farms in Brazil that currently export $4.2 billion (€2.8 billion) of beef abroad.
But it is understood that at a meeting on Tuesday, Brazilian officials presented a list of some 2,600 farms to the commission for approval, prompting an EU decision to temporarily ban all beef today.
"We had envisaged roughly around 300 holdings being allowed to export into the EU, based on previous inspections and information from the Brazilians," Mr Kyprianou told reporters yesterday.
"The Brazilians, however, have now come forward with a greater list, which of course then means we have to take more time."
In the coming days it is expected Brazil will try to get some farms approved to export beef to the EU. The next EU inspection mission is not expected to travel to Brazil until the end of February at the earliest, according to commission officials.
One of the people directly involved in bringing about the ban on Brazilian beef into the EU, John Bryan, said last night that he expected the removal of Brazilian product from Europe should lead to higher cattle prices.
Brazil, one of the top three beef exporters in the world, exports only 10 per cent of its output to the EU. While less than 8,000 tonnes of Brazilian beef makes its way into Ireland, it displaces Irish exports in Britain, the Netherlands and Italy because Irish beef cannot compete on price in those countries.
IFA president Pádraig Walshe welcomed the EU decision, which, he said, had come about as a result of a determined two-year campaign highlighting the failure of Brazil to meet EU standards.
"Brazil had failed on FMD controls, movement and traceability, border controls and animal health and food safety issues. The EU Commission and commissioner Kyprianou had no option but to apply a full ban as Brazil had failed to comply with EU requirements," he added.
Fine Gael agriculture spokesman, Michael Creed TD, said it was now time for meat factories to pay a decent price for Irish beef.
"News of the complete ban is welcome and it is high time considering the evidence of low production standards and risky practices which have been exposed in Brazil," he said.
The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers' Association president Malcolm Thompson also welcomed the ban and said his organisation had always maintained that restrictions were inadequate.