The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) president Francie Gorman has called on the European Union to immediately suspend imports of Brazilian beef.

The comments come as an EU report found that imports of beef from the south American country cannot be guaranteed to be from hormone-free animals.

The report, published by the European Commission’s Directorate-General (DG) for Health and Safety, focused on Brazilian quality control systems for beef exported to the EU.

It concluded that the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA) in Brazil is "not in a position to reliably attest" to operator compliance with the non-use of hormones in beef from cattle destined for the EU market, with the controls described as ineffective.

Francie Gorman will raise the report with Taoiseach Simon Harris and Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue at the IFA Farming and Food Conference in the Curragh Racecourse today (Thursday, October 31).

“It really is unbelievable against the backdrop of such serious findings of the food safety audit carried out in Brazil, which identified critical in adequacies in the systems to certify beef to meet the EU health certification requirements that the EU are attempting to ramp up negotiations to conclude the Mercosur trade deal," he said.

"It is bad enough that the EU is willing to do a trade deal with a country that has much lower environmental, animal health, welfare and traceability standards but now we find out that the EU itself can’t even trust the arrangements they have in place to certify beef as hormone free to comply with existing EU health certification requirements,” Gorman said.

"Any discussions on beef should be halted and all imports from Brazil should be stopped until the Brazilian authorities can prove they meet the world-class standards met by Irish and EU suckler and beef farmers,” the IFA president added.