A healthy dinner for two?

EU farmers say they are competing on an unlevel playing field against some foreign meat producers. Judith Crosbie reports.

An important cornerstone of the EU’s policy on animal health aims to give consumers assurances that the meat they buy comes from animals which are reared according to certain minimum standards, that they are not injected with harmful substances and that they can be traced back to the farms from which they come.

A 1996 directive sets out rules for the feed given to animals, stating that it must not represent a danger to human or animal health or the environment. The directive also lists the ingredients that must be identified on the label of the feed products. Other legislation requires member states to check the standards of animal feed within the EU and those imported from third countries.

Since January 2002 a European Commission regulation has required that labels on beef must state, in addition to the place of fattening, slaughtering and cutting, details about where the animal was born and reared. Later legislation concerned labelling of foodstuffs containing meat.

The EU has also harmonised rules on the use of food additives, with a 1989 directive setting down a list of food additives allowed and then only under certain conditions (for example as preservatives, emulsifiers, sweeteners or raising agents).

Simon Michel-Berger, spokesman for Copa-Cogeca, the European farmers’ association, says that farmers are happy to meet these standards to ensure good quality in EU products. But he stresses the need for a science-based approach to guarantee that there is trust among farmers and consumers.

Farmers complain that at times they are having to compete with meat products imported from countries outside the EU that, they say, have lower standards than those that European farmers must meet. Beef from Brazil is currently in the spotlight. European farmers fear that animal disease control standards before animals are brought for slaughter are not comparable to EU standards, especially for identification and traceability of animals from areas where there is foot-and-mouth disease.

The Commission says that it is continually carrying out inspections on the Brazilian beef production process and has a ban in place for three states in Brazil where foot-and-mouth is not vaccinated against. "We impose measures necessary to ensure the protection of animal health within the EU," said a spokesman.

A wider issue for farmers is whether import tariffs for meat products might be reduced in a possible global trade deal at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Copa-Cogeca argues that the cost of health and safety standards within the EU means that farmers will have to compete with products with lower standards and therefore lower costs. Farmers have been arguing that EU negotiators should be making animal and food health and safety standards an issue at the WTO, a call which has largely been ignored.

For the Commission’s health department the animal health and welfare issues are clear as they stand. "We shouldn’t confuse the issues of competitiveness and competition with third country supplies and safety. We are not guided by trade and commercial considerations," said the spokesman.

EU farmers say they are competing on an unlevel playing field against some foreign meat producers. Judith Crosbie reports.