United States Department of Agriculture officials will be inspecting Brazilian beef plants in June. Brazil’s Agriculture Minister says the audit is an important step in allowing Brazil to re-export to the United States in the future. U.S. Cattlemen Association’s Lia Biondo says despite those upcoming inspections there’s a lot of concern over allowing Brazilian beef into the U.S.
She says past inspections of products from Brazil showed several health related problems.
Biondo says what the U.S. gains from importing Brazilian beef doesn’t justify the health and safety concerns that would cause. She says one of the major problems is Brazil still hasn’t proven it has Foot and Mouth Disease under control.
Biondo says Brazil has a history of scandals in their beef industry and several of their officials were charged with bribery when they allowed imports of meat with foreign matter in it.
