AGRICULTURE: Argentine Beef Set to Recover Lost Ground

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 5 2000 (IPS) - Argentina is confident that with its new certification as a country free of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) without the need of vaccination, its world-famous steaks will begin to recover lost ground.

The world’s top exporter of beef since around 1900, Argentina began to be pushed aside by Australia, New Zealand and the United States in 1971.

President Fernando de la Rúa signed a resolution this week declaring Argentina a country free of FMD without vaccination, and the International Office of Epizootics (OIE) will formally add this Southern Cone country to its list of “FMD-free counties where vaccination is not practised” at its annual assembly in Paris on May 24.

The certification “means the opening to our beef of the 22 percent of the global market, basically comprised of Japan, South Korea and Mexico, which was closed to us while we awaited this guarantee,” Alberto de las Carreras, a former foreign trade secretary and an expert in the beef trade, told IPS.

The government has assigned special “ambassadors” to represent Argentina’s beef, including former tennis stars Gabriela Sabatini and Guillermo Vilas, dancer Paloma Herrera -ironically, a vegetarian – as well as popular humourists and singers.

The new “ambassadors”, who will not receive honorariums, will attend international food fairs seeking to associate their image and successful careers with beef, a product that for two centuries was virtually synonymous with the name of the country.

Like many of the world’s cattle-raising countries, Argentina suffered the presence of FMD since 1830. But in the last decades of the 20th century, while industrialised countries eradicated the disease, this country failed to do so, and its exports lost much of their foothold in the world market.

The FMD problem was compounded by a lack of competitiveness and poor marketing strategies, despite the advantages of Argentine beef raised in natural conditions on the pampas.

Cattle raised in that region of grass-covered plains, which encompasses four provinces in central Argentina, need neither growth hormones nor anabolics. They graze on grass that is especially rich in nutrients and antioxidants, and which produces lean, savory beef.

Today, with around 350,000 tonnes of beef exports, Argentina is the world’s fourth largest exporter, after Australia, New Zealand and the United States, each of which export more than a million tonnes of high-quality beef free of FMD, which is promoted through aggressive marketing campaigns.

“Although New Zealand is the size of just one of Argentina’s 23 provinces – Santa Cruz in the south – and is distant from most markets, it exports three times more beef than we do,” said De las Carreras, the author of the book “Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Argentina; a Challenge to Competition”.

The first blow to Argentina’s position on the world market was the US decision, in the mid-1930s, to ban imports of raw meat from countries with FMD. The embargo continued to apply to Argentina until 1997, when the country was put on the OIE’s list of “FMD- free countries where vaccination is practised.”

By 1971, Argentina’s export capacity in beef had been surpassed by Australia and New Zealand and, later, by the United States.

Thanks to a strict campaign by ranchers and the government in Argentina, the last outbreak of FMD was registered in 1994. But it was not until four years later that the country was declared free of the disease with vaccination. And today, two years on, Argentina has made it to the list of FMD-free countries where vaccination is not practised.

That certification will mean the elimination of inspections required by clients, while opening up new markets and allowing the country to save millions of dollars in vaccines. The European Union, the biggest importer of Argentine beef, has conditioned its purchases on a series of quality controls.

But with today’s heavy competition, and the strong foothold of Argentina’s rivals in the market, the new OIE certification will not be enough to make headway in new markets.

“We need a campaign because we are very bad at marketing,” wrote the president of the Association of Beef Producers, Angel Girardi, in the rural supplement of the Buenos Aires newspaper ‘Clarin’.

“We have the pasture conditions that lead to cows with muscle, not fat; we sell low-cholesterol beef with a high level of antioxidants; we do not use anabolics; and we have an environment free of dioxins, free of FMD, and free of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE-mad cow disease) – but we do not know how to sell,” said Girardi.

De las Carreras pointed out that in Japan, the world’s single largest buyer of beef, which imports more than one million of the total five million tonnes sold worldwide, packages sporting the US or Australian flags next to the trademarks can be frequently seen in supermarkets.

“The same thing is true in Singapore, South Korea or Hong Kong,” he added. In the butchershop sections of supermarkets, “you often see employees wearing aprons reading ‘Australian Beef’ or hats reading ‘United States Beef’.”

The big producers, who have huge budgets for marketing their beef worldwide, also sponsor sports figures, and their trademarks can be seen in automobile races, marathons or other sporting or cultural events.

In Argentina, where the fiscal deficit makes it impossible for the state to shell out huge sums to promote the local beef industry, the new “ambassadors” were designated, and in the next few days a bill is to be sent to Congress to create a 12 million dollar marketing fund, based on a dollar per animal slaughtered.

Based on an econometric model, the National Institute of Agricultural Technology forecast that by 2003, Argentina could be second only to Australia in beef exports, if it is able to penetrate the coveted Japanese market.

Besides health certificates, Japan demands steady year-round production of top-quality beef that must be shipped by air, a means of transport that is 10 times more expensive for Argentina than boats, which take 44 days to reach East Asia.