Brazil, eyeing exports, says herds free of mad cow disease

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) -- Brazil, home to the world's largest commercial cattle herd, insists that its cows are free of mad cow disease -- hoping to avoid any cancelation of its beef exports, the Agriculture Ministry said Wednesday.

In a note distributed to Brazil's embassies in Europe, Asia and North America, the ministry said Brazil's cattle, sheep and goat herds had never registered a case of the disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

"There is no risk of any cow infected with BSE having entered Brazil since 1980. Apart from that, the cattle breeding system in Brazil would not permit the epidemic to spread," said Luiz Carlos de Oliveira, secretary for livestock protection.

"In Brazil, the system of cattle breeding and production of protein supplements are not favorable to the proliferation of the BSE agent," said Oliveira, who signed the ministry's note.

The ministry's note would be sent by Brazil's embassies to the governments of the United States, Canada, Japan and various European countries, it said in a statement.

The disease has recently caused a major scare in Europe where it has been linked to contaminated animal feed.

In an attempt to stop the deadly brain-wasting disease from spreading, European Union farm ministers agreed this week to ban the use of meat-based feed -- meat and bone meal -- for six months and to buy and destroy cattle aged over 30 months that had not been tested for BSE.

Close to 65 percent of Brazil's beef exports, which total 550,000 tonnes annually, are destined for Europe. Brazil's commercial cattle herd numbers 160 million head.

"The Brazilian government has decided to reaffirm its 'free of mad cow' status to avoid damaging the beef production chain with eventual cancelations of beef export, in parts or subproducts," the statement said.

"Brazil wants to assure the international market as to hygiene and quality of its products with an origin from cow, sheep and goat," it said.

Oliveira said neither meat nor bone meal was used to feed Brazil's cattle, sheep or goats as the Agriculture Ministry had banned the use of these products as animal feed more than five years previously.

"Apart from grazing, the ruminant animals only receive food supplements of vegetable origin...and minerals," he said, listing meals made from soybeans, wheat, corn, rice, sorghum and sugarcane bagasse.

Last week, in the wake of the European mad cow scare, Brazil banned imports of beef, live animals and by-products from France, Spain, Germany and Portugal.

It had already suspended imports of beef and by-products from Britain in 1996, when Britain was hit by an outbreak of mad cow disease.

However, Brazil's cattle herd has had its own problems this year with disease.

In August, the key cattle state of Rio Grande do Sul was hit by a resurgence of the highly contagious foot-and-mouth virus, but the ministry now says the region is disease-free. The last reported case in the state was in December 1993.

And last month, authorities in another state -- Mato Grosso do Sul -- detected antibodies indicating previous exposure to foot-and-mouth and quickly blamed a lot of 600 imported cattle from trade partner Paraguay as the source of the problem.

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