The Brazilian livestock industry fears a prolonged halt, and China may look to other suppliers.
It is still unclear whether exports to other countries will also be suspended. Edmund Graham, chairman of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA), expressed surprise at an agricultural conference over the fact that Brazil did not report exports to the European Union (EU).
The Irish livestock sector has urged the European Commission to investigate the situation in Brazil and take all “necessary precautionary measures.”
The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture said the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) has been informed and that test samples have been sent to a laboratory in Canada after a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was discovered on a small farm in the Amazon state of Pará. The state government said this is an atypical case that occurs spontaneously in older cows and is less dangerous than the classical type.
As part of a bilateral agreement from 2015, Brazil is required to automatically suspend beef shipments to China as soon as the disease is discovered. In 2021, two cases of BSE forced Brazil to suspend exports to China for about three months. Those cases were also of the atypical kind, but Beijing maintained an embargo until early last year while Brazilian officials tried to convince China that the meat was safe.
Last year, China accounted for 55 percent of Brazil's total export volume, amounting to 1.24 million tons. Other major export markets for Brazilian beef include the United States, the European Union, Egypt, Hong Kong, Chile, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.