Feb 24 Brazil Beef Import Ban to be Lifted in U.S.

Feb 21, 2022

By Dylan Robb

For two years beef imports from Brazil into the United States were banned a substantially higher percentage was rejected by inspectors in 2017. Now the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) says the South American country’s beef industry has made the necessary changes to allow imports to resume.

“We were waiting for this news for some time and today we were fortunate to receive it,” Brazilian Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias said on Twitter.

The import ban started one year after Brazil was allowed to ship beef to the U.S. in 2016. The following year, after repeated issues, FSIS established enhanced inspections. During that time, agents rejected 1.9 million pounds of Brazilian beef products because of concerns about impacts on “public health, sanitary conditions and animal health issues.” None of these lots made it to the market.

Those inspections started after a scandal revealed meat-packers bribed inspectors for favorable results.

Consumer advocacy groups think the import change is happening without the necessary evidence.

“After this new policy takes effect, consumers will be taking a gamble every time they eat beef in the United States. There will be no country-of-origin labeling requirements on Brazilian beef, so there will be no way to know if the hamburgers you eat for dinner contain beef from a country that has had a checkered food safety history,” said Tony Corbo, Senior Government Affairs Representative for Food & Water Action in an online statement.

And he may be onto something. A recent study finds a dangerous bacteria present in many meat producing facilities. Microbiologists sampled beef marked for export in the Brazilian State of San Mato Grasso, the region responsibility from most of the beef that will be exported. Nearly seventy percent of the twelve facilities sampled had at least one positive sample test.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.