Brazil needs to make progress on inspections before any timeline can be set to end a U.S. ban on imports of fresh Brazilian beef, the U.S. agriculture secretary said on Monday. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and his Brazilian counterpart Blairo Maggi met in Washington, D.C., on Monday to discuss the ban that went into effect on June 22.
“Until when will we allow ideology to prevail over economics, markets, competitiveness grounding the great vessel of Brazilian trade in the port of little regional pretensions”, asks Katia Abreu in a column published in Folha de Sao Paulo openly criticizing the administration of Dilma Rousseff for its Mercosur policy and the results of the recent Montevideo summit.
Next season, 2012/13 Brazilian soybean growers could be in place to jump from the world's No. 2 producer and dispute the US first place. Brazil's 2012-13 soybean production is expected to rise 25% from this season’s drought-punished, to 83.1 million tons.