TRADE-ARGENTINA: Bid to Regain Market Share for Beef Stumbles

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 15 2000 (IPS) - An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease — previously eradicated in Argentina — in the northeast has made this Southern Cone country’s aim of regaining its position as the world’s top exporter of beef an even more distant goal.

This month, lab tests detected foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) antibodies in herds in northeastern Argentina, less than three months after the country was declared free of the disease without vaccination last May.

“This is sad news which will delay all of the projects in the pipeline for sales to Japan, South Korea and Mexico,” agronomist Alberto de las Carreras, the author of the book “Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Argentina: a Challenge for Competition”, told IPS. “But I have well-founded hopes that we will get the problem under control.”

De las Carreras, a member of the Chamber of Exporters, recommended that Argentina and Brazil set up a joint fund to help eradicate FMD in neighbouring Bolivia and Paraguay, in order to avoid the even higher costs of dealing with infected animals smuggled over the border.

Since the results of tests carried out on a handful of animals were made public on Aug 2, Argentina has slaughtered some 3,000 head of cattle that could have come into contact with the infected animals. It is now necessary to wait until the end of the month to determine whether any animals have actually developed the disease.

The losses are estimated at 60 to 130 million dollars, although analysts agree that nothing compares to the expense of vaccination and the loss of the value of beef from livestock suspected of coming into contact with infected animals.

Argentina was the world’s top exporter of beef from 1900 to 1971. But after that its difficulties in curbing the spread of FMD — first documented in the country in 1830 — led to the loss of market share to other big producers like Australia, the United States and New Zealand.

The vaccination campaign was finally successful in the 1990s, and the last outbreak of the disease was reported in 1994.

The elimination of the disease led to the opening of the U.S. market in 1997, after it had remained closed to Argentine beef for 65 years due to FMD.

But Argentina still has a long way to go before making headway in other big markets.

Argentina was added to the Paris-based International Office of Epizootics’ (OIE) list of “FMD-free countries where vaccination is not practiced” in May, and stopped vaccinating amidst enthusiastic projections for the future.

With the new certification and the designation of a group of “ambassadors” representing Argentina’s beef — internationally renowned artists, athletes and other public figures — the country geared up to recuperate its spot as leading exporter, and to win over the 22 percent of the market represented by Japan, South Korea and Mexico.

But less than three months after gaining its new status as FMD- free without vaccination, Argentina now faces the challenge presented by the smuggling of livestock — including infected animals — across the border from Paraguay to northern Argentina.

The recent lab tests unleashed a flurry of mutual accusations between health authorities and the Gendarmerie, the police body in charge of border surveillance. The gendarmes complain of lack of personnel and the difference in prices between the two countries, and point to the ease with which livestock can be smuggled in at spots outside the range of the border posts.

Although it is of inferior quality, there is demand for Paraguayan beef in Argentina, because its price is half that of locally-produced beef.

But even amidst the euphoria in May, sanitary authorities warned at the time that the biggest challenge, now that vaccination had been suspended, was overseeing the borders.

“We must never lower our guard against foot-and-mouth disease,” said the then-director of the National Animal Health Service, Oscar Bruni, who travelled this week to the United States to explain the measures being taken to get the problem under control.

The government ordered a ban on the movement of cattle in Argentina, and has suspended sales to the United States and Canada. Meanwhile, Chile and Taiwan — which buy 54 percent of Argentina’s beef exports — announced that they preferred not to purchase beef from Argentina for the time being.

But beyond the losses caused by the freeze on beef sales and transportation of livestock, local ranchers and authorities are especially concerned about the blow dealt by the new outbreak of FMD just when negotiations to sell beef to Mexico, Japan and South Korea were getting off the ground.

“Veterinarians in Japan and Mexico had already set specific dates for inspecting local cold-storage plants, in order to make a list of those which met the requirements for sales to those countries,” said De las Carreras. “But now they won’t come, nor do we want them to” at this time, he added.

The agronomist pointed out that all countries have occasional problems with their livestock. “Japan, South Korea and Taiwan successfully got outbreaks of FMD under control in the past few years, and both Britain and the Netherlands were hit hard by swine fever this year — not to mention ‘mad cow disease’,” he pointed out.

De las Carreras thus downplayed the problem in Argentina, as did local ranchers, who praised the quick reflexes of authorities in slapping a ban on the transportation of animals and sales abroad.

Ranchers say they are confident that the outbreak of FMD is a mere hurdle, one that did not catch them completely off guard, and which has not pushed Argentina out of the running.