Brasilia - European Union (EU) Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis, will investigate here the measures taken by Brazil to improve the instruments of health control in the production of meat and its derivatives.
Andriukaitis will meet today with several ministers to learn how the quality and transparency of government inspections of meat storage and production facilities and their derivatives are ensured.
During a visit yesterday to Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Rio de Janeiro, the high official said that Brazil is a very important trading partner for the European Union, but in order to maintain that association, the country must guarantee 100 percent food safety, he warned.
He also said that the credibility of Brazilian meat in the market only depends on national efforts, and stressed that the country needs to take rapid action and take urgent measures, maintaining good cooperation and mutual understanding, to overcome the crisis motivated by the police operation Weak Meat.
Andriukaitis's visit was scheduled before that police action and according to him, Brazil Agency said, it will be an opportunity to discuss cooperation strategies to solve the problem of the fall in exports of Brazilian meat.
In addition to the EU, some 19 countries restricted imports of Brazilian meat after the operation carried out last 17th, which included the investigation of 21 meat processing plants and compliance with 27 pretrial detention orders, 11 temporary detention orders, 77 enforcement orders and 194 of search and capture.
To date, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply has banned five of the investigated meat processing plants from continuing to produce and the National Consumer Secretariat, from the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, ordered three of these to withdraw from the market part of their merchandise produced in Santa Catarina and Paraná.
According to Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi, the problems identified in the Weak Meat operation (irregularities committed by agricultural inspectors in the service of this ministry and by owners of meat processing plants) are 'limited and specific issues of misconduct of some servers.'
Maggi defended the quality control system of the Brazilian meat and affirmed that, with the episode carried out by the FP; the image of the country was harmed, which immediately affected the external market sales, which decreased from about 63 million dollars a day to just 74 thousand.
A note released yesterday by the Movement of Landless Workers (MST) highlighted that the operation Weak Meat served to reaffirm the contradictions of the agribusiness model in Brazil, especially in relation to human health and the destruction of the environment.
It also denounced that once again the workers in the meat industry are the most affected, exposed to the precariousness imposed by the companies and now, with the FP complaints, suffer mass layoffs.
