CMC says European beef and pork producers will have benefit over Canadian farmers under CETA

Sep 25, 2017

Some Canadian treatments haven’t been approved by the European Union

By Diego Flammini
News Reporter
Farms.com

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union (EU) will benefit European beef and pork farmers, according to the Canadian Meat Council (CMC).

CETA contains two provisions that give European farmers an advantage over their Canadian counterparts, according to the CMC.

The first provision revolves around the placement of an EU health mark.

“There is a provision in the current (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) regulations which require that the EU health mark be applied at the production plant,” Ron Davidson, director of international trade, government and media relations with CMC, told Farmscape today.

Placing the health mark at the production plant is an issue, Davidson says, because exporting pork to the EU requires a cold treatment. CMC would like the health marks to be placed on boxes of meat after the cold storage treatments.

And the second provision pertains to a Canadian antimicrobial treatment.

The current antimicrobial measures used by Canadian processors isn’t currently approved by the EU. And until an agreement can be reached, Canadian meat producers may be at a disadvantage.

“The industry expectation is that, once the supplemental research has been completed, these antimicrobial interventions will receive timely approval by the EU regulatory authorities,” says a Sept. 21 CMC release.

Under CETA, which came into effect on Sept. 21, Canadian producers will duty-free export 80,549 tonnes of pork, 64,950 tonnes of beef and veal, 3,000 tonnes of bison and unlimited exports of horsemeat.

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