Carlos Bolsonaro criticises Argentine milk imports
Carlos Bolsonaro, who was elected to represent Santa Catarina, raised the issue in his first social-media video focused on priorities for the state’s productive sector. The video was published late on October 7. Bolsonaro, a former Rio de Janeiro city councillor, said producers from Argentina and Uruguay were entering Brazil with lower-priced milk.
He claimed that nearly half of the families producing milk in Santa Catarina had left the activity over the past decade because of unfair competition from imported milk powder. He also said the product reached Brazil at roughly half the price charged in the neighbouring countries. The article provided no data establishing a direct link between imports and the decline he described.
Figures from the Santa Catarina Agriculture and Livestock Federation, known as Faesc, show that the number of milk producers in the state fell from 75,000 in the 1990s to about 20,000 in 2023. Faesc’s figures indicate a continuing reduction, while a 2025 study by Brazil’s agricultural research agency Embrapa identified several factors associated with the sector’s changes, including production costs, demand, productivity, concentration in the supply chain and broader structural shifts in livestock farming.
World Trade Organisation rules classify dumping as an unfair trade practice. Bolsonaro nevertheless described the mechanism as illegal and said foreign suppliers could seek to eliminate local production before raising prices once competition had disappeared. “They want to end local production and then sell their product here at whatever price they want, when there is no more competition. We cannot let that happen,” he said.
The elected senator said imports had intensified over the past ten years. Brazil’s federal government opened an investigation into suspected dumping in December 2024, following a request from the National Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock to the Ministry of Development, Industry, Foreign Trade and Services. The ministry was dissolved on January 1st 2019 and re-established on January 1st 2023.
“I will also pressure the federal government to genuinely investigate the dumping carried out by neighbouring countries. Meanwhile, our countryside is suffering. Santa Catarina’s agribusiness needs support,” Bolsonaro said.
