Getting ready to start the long journey back to the United States. I’m in Asuncion, Paraguay for a quick flight to Sao Paulo, Brazil, then a five-hour layover before heading back to Denver via Houston. Once I get to Denver, I’ll switch out some luggage from the vehicle, another five-hour layover and then jump a flight to Omaha to speak at the Central Confinement Service Conference.
I’m ready to be home. There comes a time when you brain is full of enough information that it can’t process any further, and one starts to resemble a zombie.
Paraguay was a fountain of information. A little background information, Paraguay reopened exports to the U.S. market in December 2023. The U.S. is now the third largest importer of Paraguayan beef. Why do we import Paraguayan beef? Not every country utilizes product the same way, and it’s a specific type of beef that we are importing called “industry meat.”
In Paraguay, with the type of environment, the type of cattle, and the type of finishing system there is a lot of lean beef harvested. If we compared the grade to that of the United States, the majority of beef that is processed in this country would be select to low choice. With just short of 14 million head of cattle and 6.8 million people, 70% of the beef produced is exported.
What happens to the industry meat when imported into the U.S.? It’s mixed with the trim from the high choice and prime carcasses that the U.S. is known for to make the most popular product in the U.S. beef market, ground beef.
Why can’t we just use all the lean beef from the harvested cows and bulls from the U.S. to make those McDonald’s or Whataburger juicy hamburgers? We do, but from my understanding, we are still 50% short of the total product we need for the U.S. ground beef market. Cut off the imports of the lean trim, there is a lot of fat trim from the US beef that has little to no value at this point.
Carcass utilization helps pay the producer, and not utilizing as much of the carcass as possible means that the price for the consumer will go up. With already high prices, there comes a point that one is no longer willing to pay the price but instead decides to switch to other proteins.
So industry meat has a purpose in the U.S., but the struggle with Paraguay has been the lack of audits by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to ensure that the beef that Paraguay exports to the U.S. is safe.
Packing plants that export to the U.S. follow the same stringent rules that USDA certified plants in the U.S. have and are subject to audits and inspections from U.S. officials. Once product is imported into the U.S., it is re-inspected before it goes to the buyer.
Paraguay last had a case of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in 2011. The outbreak put a halt on all beef exports, and for a country that exports the majority of their product, the impact on producers was devastating.
Producers are required to vaccinate for FMD and though current talks are to remove the vaccine mandate, every single producer I talked to prefers to continue to vaccinate to add the additional level of security they feel the vaccine provides.
So how does a country administer vaccine to producers to ensure that every bovine in the country receives the vaccine? It starts in November, as veterinarians in the 17 regional offices of the National Service of Quality and Animal Health (SENACSA) of the Republic of Paraguay (SENACSA) start contacting producers to see what date they would like to vaccinate their livestock. From Feb. 15 to March 30, there is a 45-day window where cattle are required to receive the vaccine.
When Feb. 15 arrives, a stop movement order is placed on all cattle in the country. Cattle cannot be moved until paperwork has been submitted by the producer including total number of animals vaccinated (3% leniency on those vaccinated to those marketed) batch numbers, photos every hour by the veterinarian to ensure vaccine temp stayed consistent, needles used and the vet’s sign off that he or she followed all the protocols in vaccine delivery and administration.
Once the paperwork is turned in, the stop movement is raised on that producer, and they can return to normal function.
SENACSA follows up throughout the year with random cattle testing to ensure that cattle are carrying FMD antibodies. The only cattle that are a concern in the country are those that are stolen or brought over the border illegally. The mandatory brand law helps with that, as will the new mandated EID rule. Even if the tag is cut out, it still has to be proven who owns the animal to clear the animal for any movement or harvest.
It’s not sure yet how the mandatory EID for all calves born this year and forward will affect the vaccine protocol, and when I asked if producers are worried about the liability of product being traced back to them, the response was that too many of them remember 2011 and never want to repeat that. Due to that, they are okay with product being traced if something happened. One side note, producers pay a dollar per head for the FMD vaccine but it sounds like the EID tags will be paid for the next 10 years.
It was such a pleasure to meet with the president of SENACSA along with the President and other leadership of the Asociacion Rural Del Paraguay founded in 1885 it is the governing body of cattle producers throughout the country, and a big thank you for the knowledge and information that you were all so open to share.
There will be more highlights coming next week.
Jaclyn Wilson is more than a rancher, raising Red Angus cattle at Wilson Ranch near Lakeside, Nebraska. She’s an artist with a welder’s torch. She holds leadership positions with several agriculture organizations. She can be reached at jaclyn@flyingdiamondgenetics.com. This column represents the views of one person and are not necessarily the opinion of the Midwest Messenger.
