Agricultural attachés contribute to opening markets abroad

With the opening of new markets for national agricultural products, Brazil is strengthening itself in the international export and import scenario. Since January 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture (Mapa) has already opened 100 new markets, the majority of which are in Asia and the Americas, with 36 and 35 markets open in each, respectively. On the front line to carry out these operations and, at the same time, working behind the scenes to maintain them, are the Agricultural Federal Tax Auditors (AFFAs).

Augusto Billi, director of the Department of Non-Tariff Negotiations and Sustainability, of the Secretariat of Commerce and International Relations of Mapa, explains that market opening is when two countries reach a good agreement between the sanitary requirements of the importing country and the guarantees offered by the exporting country, for a given product. “So, for example, exporting fish to Australia is a market. Exporting poultry meat to El Salvador is another market. So it counts by product, for that country, or territory, or economic block", he details. 

To assist in the consolidation and maintenance of these markets, the position of Agricultural Attaché was created in 2010. According to Billi, the position is mostly occupied by AFFAs. Currently, Brazil has 29 agricultural attachés spread across 27 countries. 

"The Agricultural Attaché studies everything that country requires; he is identifying opportunities. He analyzes imports and consumption of a certain product and checks whether Brazil would have the sanitary conditions and competitiveness to export. He studies what barriers exist for this and the possibilities of overcome them”, he explains, and adds that it is through the AFFA that work in the Secretariat of Agricultural Defense and the Secretariat of Commerce and International Relations that it is possible to develop the best negotiation strategy to achieve the objective of opening the market. 

Billi highlights that there are many barriers to be overcome, such as tariff barriers, sanitary and phytosanitary barriers and, now, third generation barriers, aimed at environmental, social, animal welfare and labor causes, among other aspects.

"Today we have the most sustainable agriculture on the planet, we have no doubt about that. We have a Forest Code that requires every producer to preserve at least 20% of the area on their property. In the Cerrado biome, this percentage is 35%, reaching 80% preservation in the Amazon biome", he says.

Furthermore, Brazilian planning to meet deadlines and respect contracts is a source of pride. "Brazil is one of the most organized in this regard and uses family farming. A large part of our poultry and pork production comes from family farming, where families are involved in the integration process with large companies that produce and export meat products" , he adds.

Still, not every market opening means an immediate sale of products. "We opened the market, are there automatically containers going there? No. There are markets that were opened and the sector, suddenly, found it not convenient, or it is not competitive at the moment", he explains.

As important as opening up is maintaining the markets already reached. Agricultural auditors who work with animal health, plant health, inspection of products of animal and plant origin, are the professionals who can certify these guarantees.