The European Parliament has approved a one-year delay to regulations that would require importers of
beef and other goods to show their products are not linked to deforestation. The law was to go into
effect at the end of the year.
U.S. Meat Export Federation Vice President of Economic Analysis Erin Borror explains that the EU systems were not ready.
“It essentially requires geolocations for properties where cattle are raised to prove that they come from
lands not deforested,” she says. “And there are several layers of requirements, so it’s a pretty intensive
documentation process, and the systems were not ready for implementation on December 30.”
Borror says a year is still not that much time to launch the information system.
While deforestation is not a concern for U.S. beef, the regulation as written places a significant documentation burden on U.S. producers.
“We remain optimistic that there could still be changes to this regulation to make it workable… we have a $20 billion trade deficit with Europe on ag products specifically, and that is just in our trade through October,” she says. “So hopefully we’re in a strong position to try to reach some type of agreement.”
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