Brazil beating US beef output

Passes US for first time after boosting beef yields more than expected in 2025

- ANA MANO PETER HOBSON

Longhorn steers are herded through downtown Denver, Colorado, during a parade for the opening of the National Western Stock Show on Thursday.

Brazil surpassed the US as the world's top beef producer last year, according to market estimates, after the South American country beat output forecasts by hundreds of thousands of tonnes, easing a global supply squeeze and helping to limit a surge in meat prices.

Brazil was already the biggest beef exporter, shipping meat worth almost $17 billion in 2025, according to government trade data released on Tuesday. Beef production numbers are not due until February, but analysts have recently raised their estimates. Farmers have been sending more animals to slaughter, cashing in on high export demand from countries including China and the US, where low supply has pushed beef prices to record levels.

Elevated slaughter typically leads to a period of low output as producers hold back animals to breed and rebuild herds. But productivity gains in Brazil may limit or even prevent a downturn, people in the industry say. They noted that farms have been inseminating cattle quicker, fattening them faster and slaughtering them younger.

"Ten years ago, the average age of cattle slaughtered in Brazil was five years," said Vinicius Barbosa, who is in charge of tens of thousands of cattle at the CMA feedlot in Barretos, about 260 miles (420 kilometres) north of Sao Paulo. "Now it is 36 months and going rapidly to 24," he said.