The European Union has warned Brazil once again about the non-compliance of certain of its food products earmarked for export in terms of hygiene and consumer protection regulations. This position, which reasserts the determination of the European Union to take restrictive measures if the problems observed continue, reveals above all the dangers of unbridled liberalization of international agricultural exchanges in terms of food security and sovereignty.
In response to the non-compliance of several food products from Brazil with European hygiene and consumer protection regulations, Markos Kyprianou, European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, has warned Brazil on the possible implementation of preventive restrictions on its exports.
This warning is, however, not the first for Brazil which has already been singled out by the European Union four times over the last two years.
> The EU’s Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) had registered negligence in the verification of food for export and, more specifically, failures to monitor veterinary residues. The EU had banned at the time the importation of honey and game meats.
> In addition, the EU uncovered shortcomings in hygiene in the production of fish, as well as irregularities in the traceability of animals, which led to the adoption of severe sanitary controls.
> Finally, because of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in certain regions of Brazil, the EU had frozen its beef imports.
These repeated warnings on the part of the EU against the “great world farms” of tomorrow like Brazil, besides underscoring European interest in food security, lead to two conclusions:
> First, they reveal that uncontrolled liberalization of international agricultural exchanges will affect food security and supplies for developed countries.
> Secondly, they show that limiting the agricultural issue to commercial considerations, without taking into account stakes as strategic as food security, sovereignty or hunger throughout the world, represents a major risk for the future of humanity.
This is why it is urgent to start, as WOAgri proposes, the implementation of a world agricultural governance founded on new decision-making and market management tools. This is how we will succeed in promoting a regulated liberalism of agricultural exchanges that will enable all of the world’s agricultures to develop while respecting social, environmental and food security standards. |