Earlier this month, the Irish Farmers Journal and the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) travelled to Brazil to investigate the differences between Irish production standards and Brazilian production standards.

The trip was made against the backdrop of the Mercosur trade deal being approved before the end of the year where 99,000t of Brazilian beef will be offered a reduced tariff rate to enter the European beef market.

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Over the duration of the visit, the IFA's Tomas Burke, picture editor with the Irish Farmers Journal Philip Doyle and myself visited four states and travelled almost 3,000km, visiting farms, marts and agricultural supply stores.

On those farms and inside those marts, we found animals with no tags, no record of animal movements and evidence of tag removal.

The tagging and traceability standards that we observed in Brazil are a long way off the tagging and traceability rules and regulations applied on Irish farms and across Europe.