Progress and reversal on the decision to allow meat from the north of the country into Patagonia

The government published Resolution 180/2025 in the Official Gazette, changing the sanitary conditions for admitting meat with or without bone, meat products, and reproductive material into Patagonia (a region recognized as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) free without vaccination) from the north of the country (which vaccinates).

According to the agency, the measure aligns with the recommendations of the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), “establishing guidelines on the maturation, packaging, processing, and transportation of meat, as well as specific sanitary requirements for reproductive material,” to “ensure animal health and product safety, without affecting domestic trade or supply, nor existing markets with other countries.”

Moreover, SENASA argued that “sampling conducted in recent years demonstrates the absence of viral circulation throughout the entire country,” and that the risk of the FMD virus entering the FMD-free-without-vaccination zone via rib plate with bone from the FMD-free-with-vaccination zone was deemed “insignificant.”

However, only hours after the measure was published, Alberto Weretilneck, governor of the Patagonian province of Río Negro, emphatically rejected it, calling it “uninformed, arbitrary, and centralist, decided by a bureaucrat from a desk in Buenos Aires, responding to who knows what interests.” Meanwhile, the governor of neighboring Neuquén posted on his X account: “In dialogue with the Minister of Economy, @LuisCaputoAR, (…) we have agreed to suspend for 90 days the measures adopted by SENASA regarding the entry of bone-in meat from FMD-free-with-vaccination zones into regions of the country where such vaccination is not applied.”

Patagonia has around 1.2 million head of cattle, insufficient even for its own consumption. The debate unfolds amid a conflict of interests among at least four players: the region’s few slaughter plants, which have spare processing capacity; local ranchers, who enjoy a captive market; consumers paying far higher prices than the rest of the country; and nearby slaughter plants on the other side of the sanitary barrier that are unable to sell bone-in meat in their own country.

Many in the sector wonder what the Patagonian governors negotiated in this election year to secure the suspension of the measure.