TRADE-MERCOSUR: Foot-and-Mouth Threatens Exports, not Integration

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 30 2000 (IPS) - The resurgence of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in northeastern Argentina and southern Brazil is jeopardising the exports of the Southern Cone Common Market (Mercosur) trade bloc, one of the world’s leading exporters of beef.

But the problem will not affect integration, agreed officials from the two countries at a meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city.

On the contrary, the problem will bring the bloc’s two largest members closer together, because it will require joint action in policing compliance with health regulations and controls, said Sao Paulo secretary of agriculture and supplies, Joao Carlos de Souza Meireles, at Tuesday’s seminar on beef production in Mercosur.

Argentina and Brazil will set up mechanisms for cooperating in efforts against the disease — a problem of concern to all, but one that will not become a motive for conflict, concurred Argentina’s secretary-general of the president, Jorge de la Rúa, the brother of President Fernando de la Rúa.

The ministers of agriculture of the Mercosur nations — Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — will meet Saturday in Porto Alegre, the capital of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, to discuss joint plans for eradicating the recent outbreaks of FMD.

Argentina, southern Brazil and Uruguay were declared free of FMD after decades of strict controls and vaccination.

FMD is an acute febrile virus disease that affects cloven- footed animals like cattle, pigs and sheep.

In the case of an outbreak of the highly contagious disease, any livestock that may have been infected must be slaughtered, the area in question put under quarantine, and preventive measures taken by importing countries, such as a freeze on purchases of meat from the country or provinces where the cases of FMD appeared.

Mercosur, as a bloc, is the world’s biggest exporter of beef, selling a combined total of more than one million tonnes a year, stressed Vanderlei Macris, the president of the Sao Paulo state legislature and one of the seminar’s organisers.

Stockbreeding is also the bloc’s chief rural activity, and the level of exports confirm the sector’s competitiveness. For that reason, Macri underlined, the problems facing ranchers must be tackled by all of the bloc’s members together, with the aim of holding onto market share or making headway into new markets.

Moreover, stockbreeding provides raw materials for exports like footwear and leather. While Brazil, for example, exported 820 million dollars in beef last year, it also sold 1.3 billion dollars in footwear and 600 million dollars in leather, the local Sao Paulo legislator pointed out.

When reports first came out three weeks ago that cases of FMD had been detected in three Argentine provinces, the United States, Brazil and other markets stopped importing livestock and beef in less-processed forms from that country, where thousands of heads of cattle were slaughtered.

Infected cattle were later found in two municipalities of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, triggering similar reactions from neighbouring provinces and countries. So far, more than 500 pigs and heads of cattle have been slaughtered and buried there to curb the spread of the disease.

Pigbreeders in southern Brazil, who are concentrated in Santa Catarina, a state bordering Rio Grande do Sul, fear that China and Russia, important markets for Brazilian pork, will suspend their purchases.

There has been suspicion for several months that FMD is present in Paraguay. Argentina and Brazil beefed up controls along their borders with that country, but many believed the controls were not tight enough to keep smugglers from slipping across with their animals, some of which were apparently infected.

Since the outbreaks occurred in areas considered FMD-free, accusations were inevitable, and fears arose that the Mercosur integration process would be hurt.

The secretary of agriculture of Rio Grande do Sul, José Hoffman, sniped, for example, that the outbreaks in his state originated in the neighbouring state of Mato Grosso do Sul, which has an extensive land border with Paraguay.

In response, authorities in Mato Grosso do Sul criticised his remarks as “irresponsible.”

Hoffmann also accused the central government of cutting spending earmarked for the fight against FMD. Out of this year’s budget of nine million dollars, only half a million had been used so far, he complained.

Rio Grande do Sul will now have to ensure that no new cases break out over the next year, before it is put back on the International Office of Epizootics’ (OIE) list of countries or provinces free of FMD, and allowed to export once more free of restrictions, said Brazil’s minister of agriculture Marcus Pratini de Moraes.

De Moraes convoked the secretaries of agriculture from 14 of Brazil’s 27 states Tuesday in Brasilia to discuss how to step up control measures.

Fortunately, the region where FMD was detected is not a big exporter, and most of the beef produced there is consumed on the domestic market, said Sao Paulo secretary of agriculture Meireles.

Measures to fight FMD must be unflagging, emphasised Macris, who hosted the seminar that brought together Argentine and Brazilian authorities. Any country can be caught off guard by new cases, he pointed out, citing Japan, a country that has been FMD- free for 98 years, but which experienced three outbreaks of the disease early this year.