Here are some facts: The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has in place plans to allow U.S. meat-processing companies to import, under certain conditions, fresh beef from 14 Brazilian states.

Due to long-standing concerns over FMD, only thermally processed beef (pressure-cooked) from Brazil has been allowed into the U.S. for decades.

The designated export region is composed of Brazilian states declared FMD-free with vaccination by the world animal health authority OIE.

The imported beef would be subject to on-site inspection regulations and protocol (“equal to” U.S. inspections) that would mitigate the risk of FMD introduction, including movement restrictions, inspections, removal of potentially affected parts and a maturation process.

Prior to actual importation of beef from these Brazilian states, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) must also determine each region of Brazil as eligible to export fresh or frozen beef products after a final regulation by APHIS has been published.

Brazil is the world’s largest beef exporter (1.35 million metric tons to 130 countries) with the world’s largest commercial cattle herd (estimate of 190 million head).

Russia is Brazil’s leading volume beef market (207,360 metric tons in 2013) and second to Hong Kong (203,869 metric tons).

But even with twice as many cattle as the U.S., Brazil still does not produce as much beef as the U.S.

The U.S. is the world’s largest consumer of beef at 11.6 million tons annually, of which it imports about 1.02 million tons. Brazilians consume 80 percent of the beef produced domestically.

The proposal has united factions within the U.S. beef industry that rarely agree on anything. Of the hundreds of comments regarding the issue posted on the USDA’s website, nearly all are negative.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) said that while it appreciates the efforts of the USDA in expanding export markets for beef based on internationally sound science, it too has concerns about FMD to the naïve cattle herd in the U.S.

NCBA also cited APHIS’s own assessment that found controlling an FMD outbreak in the U.S. could cost between $37 and $42 billion (in 2011 dollars).

Some observations: It’s estimated that annual imports of fresh (chilled or frozen) beef from Brazil would total 20,000 to 65,000 metric tons.

Given these expectations, Brazil would still have to compete in U.S. markets for part of the 64,805 metric tons of beef imports allocated to “other countries,” compared with the 213,000 metric tons allowed to New Zealand and 408,000 metric tons for Australia.

About two-thirds of the predominantly grass-fed and totally growth implant-free, ionophore-free and beta-agonist-free beef imported from Brazil would displace beef that’s currently imported from mainly Australia and New Zealand – generally higher-cost beef producers.

And, as importantly, nearly 100 percent of the beef would be – as with the case of those other countries – in the form of “manufacturing beef” or lean beef to be blended with domestic high-fat beef trimmings for hamburger.

The primary driver for U.S. beef imports is the fact that our beef trimmings are too fatty. Foreign beef most commonly makes it to the U.S. in the form of lean, grass-fed beef.

The U.S. produces ground beef mainly categorized as “50s,” a mixture of 50 percent lean beef trimmings and 50 percent fat – a ratio too high to sell as hamburger without mixing in leaner products from grass-fed imports or older, leaner cows from the domestic supply.

The opening of beef trade to the U.S. could pave the way for Brazilian beef to be shipped to other NAFTA countries and some in Central America and Asia – even China.

The Brazilian export picture rests a great deal more on economics than politics. Brazilian currency – the real – remains depreciated in global monetary markets, assisting the competitiveness of Brazilian beef (and all exports) in international markets.

This writer’s opinion based on numerous trips to Brazil and years of studying the Brazilian cattle industry: This proposal will be put in place.

But it will not break the U.S. cattle market. U.S. ranchers or cattle feeders will not see the price of cattle drop because of imported Brazilian beef.

The risk of FMD being imported into the U.S. via Brazilian beef products is the looming question.

First, the U.S. will not be a dumping ground for substandard beef produced under unsanitary conditions.

Brazilian beef plants certified for export are subject to the same sanitary conditions as those in the U.S. – policed not only by U.S. inspectors, but also policed by inspectors and inspection protocol from dozens of other countries just as concerned about sanitation as U.S. producers and consumers.

Second, the Brazilian government and Brazilian beef producers would lose a great deal if they allowed FMD to enter their supply chains and escape into U.S. commerce. Their fears of an FMD episode traced to exported beef match our fears.

That said, vestiges of FMD remain on the South American continent. It’s been nearly a decade since the last reported cases of FMD in Brazil – involving 153 head of cattle in a herd of 590 cattle and eight pigs.

Those cases were in a remote area of Mato Grosso do Sul near the Paraguay border. Control measures, including area quarantines, surveillance zones, on-site inspections and epidemiological surveys were implemented. Infected and suspect animals in the infected herd were euthanized.

The FMD virus is far from lurking behind every bush in Brazil. Plus, many related events would have to fall into place, in concert, for FMD to survive past infected animals, through slaughter, survive the beef supply chain to and through the consumer environment in the U.S.

Then it would have to end up in a position to infect a beef animal – or another ungulate – in this country. It’s an infinitesimally small risk to say the least – in the same ballpark of BSE passing through the U.S. beef supply chain into international commerce.

There’s probably a bigger risk of FMD-infected meat being smuggled into the U.S. from Asia, Africa or Europe.

Whether we like it or not, uncooked beef imports will at some point enter U.S. commerce. Do we really need it to occur?

Will it make or break the U.S. meat-processing business? Will U.S. consumers see any difference in the meat case? Will U.S. cattlemen be adversely affected?

No, no, no and no. The truth is: We’ve got lots of other things to lose sleep over. 

Clint Peck is former director of Montana’s Beef Quality Assurance program.