From: Farmers Guardian
DESPITE massive growth in beef sales to Russia, Hong Kong, Egypt and other comparatively ‘new’ markets, Brazil remains anxious to revive its formerly lucrative trade with the UK.
That was the clear message from Prof Marcia Dutra de Barcellos, beef market specialist and associate professor of marketing at Brazil’s University of Rio Grande do Sul, when she addressed the annual Eblex conference this week.
Putting into perspective the ‘Amazon rainforest debate’, she said some 77 per cent of the country’s export beef came not from the Amazon region, but from areas like São Paulo (40.9 per cent), Goiás (13 per cent), Mato Grosso (12.7 per cent) and Mato Grosso do Sul (11.1 per cent).
Already number one in the export of beef, poultry, orange juice, coffee, tobacco and sugar, she said her country had some 91 million hectares (225m acres) of land available for agriculture outside the Amazon region.
Fewer processors
The former director of the Certified Brazilian Angus Beef Program, she said the slaughter industry in Brazil was now in fewer hands and Mafrig - an added value specialist - together with the now merged operations of JBS-Friboi and Bertin, had some 70 per cent of the Brazilian export trade.
The two operators processed almost one third of the 30 million head of cattle killed in Brazil in 2008.
It was significant that these big players had announced a moratorium on the purchase of beef from deforested land.
“The companies also agreed to ban buying of cattle from ranches using slave labour or illegally occupying protected areas and indigenous reserves.
“It is not a definitive solution, but it is a start. Developed countries also need to contribute,” she said.