It has been a turbulent year so far for Brazil since the revelations around operation Weak Flesh, which broke in the EU on St Patrick's Day.

Since then, confidence among international customers has dwindled, with the USA going as far as an outright ban and the EU and China increasing scrutiny.

Add to this the problems of their flagship processor JBS leading to a fire sale of assets and the country's president facing impeachment, and turmoil seems the only appropriate word to describe the current state of the country.

US ban

The Brazil ban imposed by the USA actually presents an opportunity for Ireland to supply beef under the 63,000t tariff-free quota the US has for countries that it doesn’t have a specific trade deal with.

It was envisaged earlier in the year that Brazil, which had just regained access to the US late in 2016, would fill this quota by itself.

However, irrespective of tariff-free access, Ireland has not bothered much with the US this year.

This is a reflection of the strength of EU and other third country markets in Asia, particularly Hong Kong and the Philippines, for the lower-value products.

Even the eventual approval of a manufacturing beef protocol for supplying the US this time last year hasn’t driven that market as expected.

Big loss

The other big loss for Brazil sales this year has been to the EU.

Although the available data is only to the end of April and Operation Weak Flesh took place in mid-March, Brazil's sales to the EU have fallen from 49,686t in the same period in 2016 to 35,319t this year – a fall of 29%.

While EU imports in January to April 2017 are down 7,000t overall to levels comparable with 2015, the only other major exporter to lose sales was Australia, which is down just over 2,000t.

This reflects a pattern in all of Australia’s export markets and is driven by drought-caused supply problems and restocking.

Increase in sales from other suppliers

The other major suppliers to the EU have all grown their sales this year.

The USA has increased sales by by almost 2,700t to 8,856t between January and April, while Uruguay has increased by 4,331t to 20,474t in this period.

The biggest and most significant growth of all was Argentina, which increased sales by 6,876t to 20,883t between January and April, an increase of one-third (33%).

This makes Argentina the EU’s second largest supplier and reflects a resurgence of the Argentinian beef industry since the arrival of a new trade orientated Government in late 2015.

Where there were export taxes in the past on beef sales abroad, the current administration actually encourages the redevelopment of this business with an incentive of a 5% refund on export sales.

Argentina was one of the top five beef-exporting countries in the early years of this century and it’s star is on the rise again.