Picture from USDA: Consul General Ricardo Zuniga displays U.S. beef ready for Brazilian customers representing more than a decade of work.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced Thursday that the first shipment of fresh U.S. beef has arrived in Brazil following a 13-year hiatus.
The entrance of American beef into the Brazilian market ushers in promising long-term economic opportunity for U.S. beef producer.
Perdue says “I look forward to Brazilians getting the opportunity to eat delicious American beef, because once they taste it, they’ll want more of it.”
Brazil closed its market to imports of U.S. fresh beef in 2003 over concerns about bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE.
Since then, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service have worked continuously with Brazilian officials to regain market access.
Brazil officially reopened the market on August 1, 2016, based on the United States’ classification by the World Organization for Animal Health as a negligible risk country for BSE.
