Eyes on Brazil

[Oldtimer]

U.S. team to inspect Brazilian meat plants



by Pete Hisey on 8/16/2006 for Meatingplace.com



A U.S. veterinary mission will visit Brazilian meat plants starting Wednesday and spend a month determining whether Brazil meets U.S. standards in slaughter and meat processing.



The team will also visit a microbiology laboratory, along with the eight meat plants nationwide. At present, those eight are authorized to export meat to the United States, generally in the form of cooked, canned products. Fresh meat is banned because of the incidences of foot-and-mouth disease in Brazil's main livestock-producing states.



The team plans to announce the results of its inspection on Sept. 12.





meatingplace.com

 

[Oldtimer]

These multinational Packers are just chomping at the bit, to get full access into Brazil, cheap land, all year grazing, no winter slowdowns, cheap cheap cattle, and their $2 a day labor...They've invested Billions $ into South America building feedlots and developing a feeding and cattle industry and want some return on their investment soon....Campbells soup is already processing all their beef products down there- and as soon as the can buy out and pressure enough bureaucrats and politicians to lift the FMD barriers they will be channeling cheap cheap beef north....

Where they will remove the origin label, restamp with the USDA inspected stamp, and pass it off to unknowing US consumers as US beef...

 

[Oldtimer]

And the US consumer is still forced to eat generic "Guess Where it Came From" beef......

Brazil Beef Exports To US May Grow, 1 Plant Suspended-Reports



Agriculture Online

August 16, 2006



SAO PAULO (Dow Jones)--In coming weeks, Brazil is likely to issue export

licenses to three more meatpackers to ship processed Brazilian beef to the U.S.

- a step which could boost Brazilian beef sales to the country as much as 15%

to 20%, according to a press report in local Agencia Estado wire on Wednesday.



Currently 20 plants have authorization to sell meat to the U.S., said Nelmon

Oliveira da Costa, the director of the animal products inspection department at

Brazil's Agricultural Ministry, according to the report.



However, three more plants could be granted export licenses, pending the

approval of a U.S. team of agricultural inspectors that arrived in Brazil on

Wednesday to evaluate sanitary conditions at several of the country's

meatpacking plants. They will be in the country until Sept. 12.



In other news, however, the Agricultural Ministry on Friday temporarily

suspended the export license of a Sao Paulo plant of the country's No. 2 beef

exporter Bertin last Friday due to a complaint from the U.S. about the

specifications of one shipment, according to local Valor Economico newspaper.



The plant, which is located in the municipality of Lins in the interior of

Sao Paulo state, will be visited by the U.S. team on Monday and Tuesday. If it

passes inspection, the plant could return to exporting beef within 90 days.



If the plant is excluded from the approved U.S. list of beef exporters,

however, it may not be allowed to ship meat for a full year.



However, Agricultural Ministry officials have said that the problem occurred

during the shipment of the cargo, as opposed to at the factory.



"It wasn't a loss of control of the factory process, but just a problem of

logistics," said Nelmon Oliveira, according to the Valor report.



Sanitary conditions at Brazilian meatpacking plants have been a trade issue

between Brazil and the U.S. in recent months. Last year, the U.S. inspection

team banned meat from plants of some of the country's major meatpackers,

including a Sao Paulo plant owned by Friboi, a plant in Rio Grande do Sul owned

by Pampeano, and a plant in Minas Gerais state owned by Kerry.



After that, the suspension was extended to 28 Brazilian meatpackers, as the

U.S. asked Brazil to revise its technical procedures as well as control systems

for meat-processing.



In 2005, the U.S. bought roughly $205.7 million of processed beef from

Brazil. In the first seven months of this year, the U.S. has purchased $167.5

million of the product.



Brazil is the world's leading beef exporter.





-By Grace Fan; Dow Jones Newswires



agriculture.com