Brazilian beef imports into the EU cannot be guaranteed to be hormone-free according to a new report.

The report from the European Commission shows that Brazil cannot prove its beef supplied to the EU market is not treated with oestradiol 17ß. Current regulations mean that cattle treated with the hormone cannot be slaughtered for the EU market.

Since 1981, the EU has prohibited the use of hormones used for growth promotion in farm animals. Oestradiol 17ß is one of the substances listed on the Commission’s website as being an example of these kind of banned growth promoters.

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Whilst national legislation on this issue is similar between the EU and Brazil, the report said:

“The current arrangements in place to guarantee that cattle, meat from which is destined for the EU market, have never been treated with oestradiol 17ß for zootechnical or therapeutic purposes, are ineffective.”

The report stated that the Brazilian Ministry for Agriculture “is not in the position to reliably attest to operator compliance” with this section of the EU health certificate for bovine meat exports to the bloc.

The report’s findings are based on an audit of Brazil carried out from May 27 to June 14, 2024 as part of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety’s planned work programme.

It was also found that Brazilian farms are not legally required to keep on-farm treatment records of their livestock. There are also no controls over the use of veterinary medicinal products use on farm animals.

Medicinal products for veterinary use containing oestradiol 17ß require a prescription in Brazil. However, the information to be recorded in the prescription is not defined and the record does not need to be retained on the farm, according to the Commission’s report.

The report also showed that while there are “some shortcomings in the analytical method validation and room for improvement in the operation of the internal quality control system,” most analytical methods are of a standard to “allow the competent authority to have confidence in the analytical results provided by the laboratory network.”

Since the report’s publication, some have called for the EU to immediately stop imports of beef from Brazil such as Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) president Francie Gorman.

Mr Gorman said: “It really is unbelievable against the backdrop of such serious findings of the food safety audit carried out in Brazil which identified critical inadequacies in the systems to certify beef to meet the EU health certification requirements, that the EU are attempting to ramp up negotiations to conclude the Mercosur trade deal.

“It is bad enough that the EU is willing to do a trade deal with a country that has much lower environmental, animal health, welfare and traceability standards, but now we find out that the EU itself can’t even trust the arrangements they have in place to certify beef as hormone free to comply with existing EU health certification requirements.”