Just when a solution looks to be on the horizon with the renegotiation of the Northern Ireland Protocol, Brazilian farmers want to reopen a protocol of their own.

This refers to the agreement or protocol with China agreed in 2015, which makes provision for Brazil to immediately suspend exports of beef to China in the event of a BSE case being discovered.

This happened two weeks ago, with exports suspended a week ago following the discovery of a single atypical BSE case in a nine-year-old animal.

ADVERTISEMENT

Now the National Beef Cattle Association have asked the Department of Agriculture in the Brazilian government to reopen this agreement based on the principle that suspension of exports to China is a totally disproportionate response in a country which has never had a case of classic BSE, which is associated with the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) brain disease in humans.

Atypical cases like the most recent one are completely random and sporadic, and are not linked with CJD in the human population.

The association also highlights that the World Organisation for Animal Health classifies Brazil as an insignificant risk BSE country, and that a similar incident in September 2021 led to Brazilian beef being excluded from the Chinese market for four months.

Meanwhile, the Brazilian government has revealed that the Minister for Agriculture and Livestock, Carlos Fávaro, met China’s ambassador last week and it reported that the industry and government are working to try and resolve the issue ahead of President Lula’s visit to China at the end of March.

Whether or not this is achieved remains to be seen. On the previous occasion when Brazil had an atypical BSE case in September 2021, it was the middle of December when exports were cleared by China to resume. In Ireland’s case with an atypical case of BSE, the suspension lasted from May 2020 until January 2023.