WASHINGTON, D.C. – Brazil’s beef exports to China have halted today after a case of mad cow disease was confirmed in the northern state of Para, the country’s agriculture and livestock ministry said on Wednesday.
According to Minister Carlos Favaro, “All measures are being taken at each state of the investigation and the matter is being handled with total transparency to guarantee Brazilian and global consumers the recognized quality of our meat.”
The suspension is part of an animal health pact previously agreed between China and Brazil and is expected to be temporary. It is a blow to Brazilian farmers, as China is the main destination for Brazil’s beef exports.
A case of the disease, formally called bovine spongiform encephalitis, was confirmed earlier by Para’s agricultural defense agency.
In a statement, the agency said, “The symptomatology indicates that it is the atypical form of the disease, which appears spontaneously in nature, causing no risk of dissemination to the herd and to humans.”
The sick animal was on a property with 160 head of cattle in the southeast of the state. The site has been inspected and preventively interdicted, the agency added.
Samples have been sent to the World Organization for Animal Health lab in Alberta, Canada, to confirm whether it was the classic form of the disease or its “atypical” version.
In 2021, two cases of the disease triggered a suspension in beef exports to China that lasted more than three months.
In the United States, USDA suspended imports of all fresh beef from Brazil in 2017 because of recurring concerns about the safety of the products intended for sale in the U.S. That ban was lifted in 2020. Since that time, record beef imports from Brazil into the U.S. have created growing concerns from cattle organizations that have been calling for a ban on beef exports from Brazil, citing a food safety issue.
