Brazil to hand EU shorter list of beef export farms

Brazil's government is pruning the list of ranches it designated to export beef to the European Union, which rejected Brazil's first list and banned all beef shipments from the world's largest exporter.

"In order to keep the door open" to the EU market, the Agriculture Ministry "decided to review those farms that had been audited in January to hand the EU another list," said a ministry's spokesman on Thursday.

The European Commission in late January tightened restrictions on imports from Brazil European farmers - especially from Ireland, who have been losing market share to Brazilian beef imports, had complained that Brazilian beef does not meet the strict sanitary standards required of European producers.

The European Commission said it would accept beef only from farms included in a list given by the Brazilian government. But the EU expected a list with around 300 holdings, much shorter than the one handed by Brazil, which included 2,600 farms.

This raised concerns that the country would not have proper conditions to inspect all the farms.