Paulo Montoia
Reporter - Agência Brasil

São Paulo - According to a report released on Wednesday (10) by the Brazilian Association of Meat Export Industries (ABIEC), the volume of beef exports declined 13.79% in April in consequence of the embargos imposed in reaction to outbreaks of hoof and mouth disease in the Brazilian cattle herd. The organization also identifies the appreciation of the real ín relation to the dollar as another factor that is harming the sector's export sales.

Beef export volume amounted to 194,124 tons in April, as against 252,152 tons in April, 2005. Revenues remained practically stable, inching up from US$ 252.2 million to US$ 252.3 million, thanks to the increase in the average price of the product on the international market and efforts by the government and entrepreneurs to add value and improve the quality of exported products. The overall results for the first four months of this year turned out to be positive, with a 16.24% increase in gross receipts (from US$ 872 million to US$ 1.014 billion) and a 2.43% increase in volume (from 698,609 tons to 715,614 tons).

According to the ABIEC press office, Russia's total ban on Brazilian beef imports as of December, due to the outbreaks of hoof and mouth disease, caused the drop in exports in April. Russia accounted for a significant share of the growth in Brazilian beef exports, even though it buys only fresh beef and viscera, not processed meat.

Between the first four months of last year and the first four months of this year, Russia's imports of fresh Brazilian beef rose from 55 thousand tons to 105.7 thousand tons, an increase of 92%, while revenues expanded 122%, from US$ 62 million to US$ 139 million. But in April alone, the volume of Russia's imports fell 70.11%, while revenues declined 59.47%, dropping the country to fourth place among buyers of Brazilian beef.

Although export revenues have grown at a rate six times greater than export volume, in its note to the press, the ABIEC singles out the exchange rate appreciation of the real as a factor behind the drop in volume. "The appreciation of the real has been a disaster for agribusiness in general, especially for meat exporters," says the president of the organization, Macus Vinícius Pratini de Morais.

With respect to the embargoes, the note says that, "in relation to the volume shipped, the embargoes without any technical coherence - as is the case with Chile, which hasn't bought even a kilogram of meat from Brazil in eight months - have been responsible for the modest growth during the period." The Andes Mountain Range protects Chile against the majority of pests that afflict the plantations and herds of its neighbors, and the country enforces a policy of control and destruction of fresh food at its borders.

Translation: David Silberstein