In 2019, Mexico signed an agreement with Guatemala to allow the importation of live cattle. The agreement was in response to the burgeoning “grey” trade of illegal cattle movements north across the Mexican border.
The agreement does not appear to have worked. A 2022 report by Insight Crime, a non-profit organisation that investigates organised crime in Latin America, found that around 800,000 cattle a year travel illegally across Mexico’s southern border. In contrast, Guatemala exported just 7234 cattle through the legal process to Mexico in 2021.
The problem is that the legal requirements are easily evaded including by piggybacking on the extensive networks that ship drugs and other contraband from Latin America to the US. Notionally, cattle that are exported to the US need to have an ear tag identifying that it was born and raised in certain regions of Mexico and that it meets the required health status and vaccination requirements.
Not surprisingly, Insight Crime found that black market ear tags can be bought for just $25 and that health certificates are forged “with the complicity of veterinarians and authorized laboratories.”
The arcane features of smuggling in Latin America are suddenly relevant to Australia because the Federal Government has approved the importation of beef to Australia from bovines that were “born and raised in Mexico.”
The detail of this has been lost because the headlines were that we were allowing US beef into Australia. Actually, US beef has been permitted to come to Australia since 2019, but we had to be assured that the beef was from cows born and raised in the US. That has proven almost impossible for US beef exporters because they do not have the same rigorous traceability systems that our beef producers have.
But two weeks ago, the Government surprised our beef industry with a decision that Mexican beef could now come to Australia via a US exporter. The Government’s import risk assessment on this decision concluded that Mexico has negligible risks of disease.
But the report provided no assessment of the risk of cattle travelling to the US from non-Mexican Latin American countries and then coming to Australia. Guatemala and other countries in Latin America are not rated as low risk for mad cow or other diseases. When I asked officials about this risk, they responded that it is illegal for Guatemalan cattle to enter the US. I rhetorically asked, are you suggesting that there is no crime in Mexico?
The Government’s surprise decision came after pressure from Donald Trump for Australia to open up its cattle market to more US beef. The Government is denying that it responded to this diplomatic pressure but its sudden decision, and the lack of any independent inquiry into the decision, raise questions.
Government officials admit that it is normal practice for an independent assessment to occur on contentious import decisions. It would be hard to argue that this decision is not contentious given the massive consequences if a disease from Latin American entered our cattle supply chain.
The Australian cattle industry is now calling for an independent investigation. Last week I tried to establish a Senate inquiry into the decision but that was blocked by Labor and Greens Senators.
Perhaps the most shocking revelation in the Government’s import risk analysis was the comment that “United States-Mexican cattle entry procedures were not verified nor seen by Australian officials.”
In contrast, Insight Crime – a not for profit without the resources of a large government department – actually visited borders. At the Mexican-Guatemalan border they reported that in the two hours they were there “we did not see any security forces or regulatory authorities.” On another trip they witnessed long wooden canoes with covers ferrying calves into Mexico.
There needs to be a deeper look at the Government’s decision to allow Mexican beef into Australia.
