Brazil-Double standards imposed by European Union.

BRAZIL-ITS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO GOOD.

A year ago the Irish farm Associations and the English NFU were gloating about the ban on Brazilian beef going into Europe.

What these boys failed to realize is that while they were strutting around the farms of Brazil pointing a finger, three fingers were pointing back at themselves as id the case today.

Brazil have now got 850 farms back on the list to the EU, and many more will follow for the whole reason for the ban was at best protectionism and at worse totally dishonest.

The Brazilian beef plants are light years ahead of anything there is in England or Ireland so there were no grounds to use the quality of the plants to enforce a ban.

Ireland are the best people in the worlds at changing the ear tags on cattle and for many years this was the backbone of the cross border cattle trade, so the Irish farmers associations aided and abetted by journalist raised the question of ear tags allegedly in the public interest.

In reality it was the fear of Brazilian beef bringing down localprices for the already heavily subsidized farmers of their own.

There never was any danger to public health as the portrayed and purported In a fanfare and blaze of sensational publicity.

Meanwhile the Brazilian farmers cleaned up their act and have now introduced electronic implants into all calves born.

Back in Ireland they had a salmonella pork scare in the autumn and a dioxin scandal in December, which did indeed put the health of fellow Europeans in jeopardy.

The keeping of their own meat at inflated prices and the benefits of government handouts, have played no small part in bringing the economy of their own country to its knees.

While the English cannot control their own bovine TB or bluetongues and had the live calf trade taken away from them for shipping TB reactor calves into Holland and Belgium.

If it was not so tragic it would be farcical, they had no sympathy for the Brazilian farmer who only get 20% of the price they get for finished cattle, what goes around comes around.

Just to make the whole thing border on criminal, is the fact that the farmers on the United Kingdom and Ireland are now whinging about tagging their own sheep in accordance with the EU guide lines.

There is as much risk of disease in sheep as there is in cattle.

When you have the industry being run by the politicians in Europe, there is all the more need for the heads of the industry to understand the problems of the industry from a real and practical point of view as opposed to theory.

Reality is humans cannot contract foot and mouth, there is no proof of a link between BSE and the food chain, this is fact.

However dioxins in meat can kill humans and TB in cattle can also be fatal.