A sudden outbreak of Foot & Mouth (FMD) in mid-September in the centre of the country has halted the country’s booming beef exports. Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay have taken emergency measures to prevent the spread of Paraguay’s FMD outbreak to domestic cattle herds.
Paraguayan experts admit that the losses to Paraguay could easily reach US$300m with thousands of animals likely to be slaughtered. The Paraguayan army has been deployed to San Pedro, where the outbreak was first detected, to shoot the diseased stock and any other animals which may have come into contact with them.
What is not clear is when the outbreak began. The official notification came on 19 September, but Latin News’s local sources say that almost certainly the managers of the estate where the outbreak began first saw sick cattle a week earlier. The managers panicked and tried to sell the ill stock, almost certainly making the outbreak worse.
Unlike the last two FMD outbreaks, which occurred in heavily monitored border areas, this outbreak was in San Pedro in the middle of the country. How the cattle caught the disease is unclear. One alarming conclusion may be that the disease was never eradicated. The non border areas, such as San Pedro, account for 40% of the country’s beef exports.
Chile is the main regional market for Paraguayan beef, which has a 38% share of the Chilean market. Globally, Chile is only second as a market to Russia, Paraguay’s main beef export destination. Russia has also closed its market to Paraguayan beef.
It is not clear what will happen to beef which was slaughtered and packed before outbreak was reported. At least 4,500t of meat, which Paraguayan meat packers argue were processed at least two weeks before the outbreak, were held up t the Chilean border by phytosanitary inspectors. The Paraguayan government is lobbying its Santiago counterpart to accept this meat. A report by TV Chile calculates that meat prices in Chile could increase by up to 4%, until alterative supplies are found.
Brazil has also halted the purchase and transport of live cattle and processed beef from Paraguay. In the first seven months of 2011, Brazil imported 5,500t of Paraguayan beef, worth US$29.1m. In 2010, Brazil imported 6,700t of Paraguayan beef, valued at US$36.4m.
Brazil has also offered assistance against the outbreak, as a spill-over would thwart its plans to achieve certification as an “FMD-free country with a vaccination regime” by 2013. In the first six months of 2011, Brazil exported 543,800 t of meat, worth some US$2.59bn.
Argentina and Uruguay have also stopped Paraguayan beef and cattle imports. Argentina also announced that it would bring forward the vaccination regime in all provinces that border Paraguay.
Coffee : In the first 11 months of the 2010/11 coffee year Nicaragua increased exports by 39% in cash terms, year-on-year to US$431m. The volume of exports was down by 8% at 1.91m quintales (100lb or 45.45kg bags). The coffee year runs from 1 October to 30 September. So far this year the average international price for arabica has been US$225 a quintal, up from US$148 in the previous coffee year.
The International Coffee Organisation met at the end of September to elect a new general manager. The four contenders are: Robéiro Oliveira Silva from Brazil; a, Krishna Rau from India; Rodolfo Trampe from Mexico, and Christian Ruffin Ngoua from Gabon.
- Paraguay was declared free of Foot & Mouth in 2005. Since then it has become the world’s fourth largest beef exporter, and indeed beef is now the country’s second biggest export earner, after soya.
