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USDA halts imports of fresh Brazilian beef

The US has suspended all imports of fresh beef from Brazil amid continued food safety concerns.

Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue says ensuring the safety of the nation’s food supply is a top priority for the department.

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has been inspecting 100 percent of all meat products exported to the US from Brazil following a food-safety probe earlier this year.

R-Calf USA’s Bill Bullard says the suspension should have happened three months ago.  “After three months of knowing that the Brazilian food safety officials had been bribed to allow tainted beef to enter the international market, three months later our US Department of Agriculture finally decides to prohibit some of those plants from exporting beef to the United States,” he says.

FSIS has refused entry to 11 percent of Brazilian beef products, a figure that is significantly higher than the 1 percent rejection rate from the rest of the world.  The USDA says none of the rejected lots made it into the US market.

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association president Craig Uden says the NCBA supports the action taken by Secretary Perdue.  In a statement he said the action is the result of USDA’s strong, science-based testing protocol of imported beef and proves the US food safety system works effectively.

A statement from the Brazilian Association of Beef Industry Exports stated the suspension occurred “after detection of reactions to the vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease that in some cases can provoke internal, and not externally visible abscesses” and called the action temporary and preventative to avoid problems in the US market.

The USDA says the suspension of shipments will remain in place until the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture takes corrective action which the USDA finds satisfactory.

Last year a deal was signed between the US and Brazil to reopen two-way trade between the two countries.  Brazil has been shipping beef to the US since last fall, in May the first shipment of US beef arrived in Brazil after a 13-year ban.