December 23, 2013

Currently, due to sanitary barriers linked to foot and mouth disease (FMD), Brazil can only export industrialised beef to the US.

"It is something spectacular to open a huge market such as the US for Brazilian beef", said Antonio Carmadelli, president of the Brazilian Association of the beef exporting industry (Abiec). At 11.6 million tonnes, US is the world's largest consumer of beef. The country imports a volume of 1.02 million tonnes.

"Ff we make it to the US, we have prospects of other openings in Nafta members, Canada and Mexico, plus Central America which follows US sanitary rules", added the Brazilian businessman.

Over 18 months ago, the process to access the US market was started with the former Agriculture minister, Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes. However, an outbreak of FMD caused negotiations to delay.

Under the WTO cotton agreement reached in 2010, US was committed to opening its market for Brazilian pork and beef. So far, only the state of Santa Catarina has been able to benefit, particularly in pork since it leads in pig farming.

Under the new system, 14 Brazilian states will be able to export fresh or matured beef to the US. An earlier plan was to make an official announcement of the development last October when Dilma Rousseff was scheduled to visit the White House. However, things fell through with the disclosure of massive US spying.

Abiec estimates that, in 2014, it will be able to sell anywhere from 5,000 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes of beef to the US, but 2015 could turn into a boom year. Brazil is expected to export US$6.5 billion of beef this year with Hong Kong, Russia and Venezuela as main markets.

The Brazilian government is also confident that the opening of the US market will also help to unlock other significant markets such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia.