Report claims traders dump beef in Africa

A small number of "fast buck" beef traders are dumping massive quantities of subsidised Irish beef in African markets, causing widespread recession and unemployment there, it has been claimed.

More than 50 million tons of Irish beef has been "dumped" in southern Africa in recent years, thereby undercutting local producers and crippling agricultural growth in the post-apartheid era, according to Dr Paul Goodison, the author of a new report on the Common Agricultural Policy and Africa.

Irish producers are also heavily involved in dumping subsidised butter in the Zimbabwean market, with similar adverse consequences, says Dr Goodison, a researcher with the Brussels-based European Research Office.

"It's not Irish farmers who are benefiting from these practices, rather it's big traders, many of them opportunistic Johnny-comelatelys in it for the fast buck," he said.

EU beef producers receive £2.50 in export refunds for every £1 of meat they export to South Africa.

Thanks to these subsidies, EU beef was until recently selling for less than half the wholesale price for beef in the region.

Dr Goodison was in Dublin this week to brief officials of the Departments of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs on the report, "Food for Thought: CAP reform and agricultural development in Southern Africa".

The Global Food Security Group, a coalition of aid and missionary organisations which commissioned the report, called on the Departments to press for change within the EU on the negative impact of the CAP on developing world economies.

Dr Goodison said farmers in Namibia were "bewildered and annoyed" that subsidised EU beef was flooding into South Africa, their traditional export market.

In Zimbabwe, butter production had declined by over 90 per cent in the past five years because it was cheaper to import subsidised EU butter and then rewrap it. Butter was selling commercially at £1.20 a kilogram in South Africa, but EU producers were able to claim export refunds worth £1.40 on top of this.

Dr Goodison maintains that the CAP could be reformed with little adverse effects for Irish farmers. Although EU beef exports have a huge negative impact on markets in Southern Africa, the region accounts for only 2 per cent of EU exports.

Irish beef traders played a major role in the upsurge of EU beef exports to South Africa following the lifting of controls. Exports increased seven-fold between 1993 and 1994, and Irish and British traders came to dominate the EU's beef trade with South Africa completely.

Then, when a worldwide ban on British beef was imposed over the BSE scare, Ireland emerged as by far the largest EU exporter, accounting for twice as much exported beef as any other EU state.

The report calls on the Government to address the problems caused by CAP in inhibiting free trade between the EU and developing countries. It also wants Ireland to give a lead in providing support for African agriculture.