By Ana Mano and Peter Hobson
BARRETOS, Brazil, Jan 7 (Reuters) – Brazil overtook the United States as the world’s top beef producer last year, according to market estimates, after the South American country beat production forecasts by hundreds of thousands of tonnes, easing a global supply squeeze and helping limit a sharp rise in meat prices.
Brazil was already the largest exporter of beef, shipping meat worth nearly $17 billion in 2025, according to government trade data released on Tuesday. Beef production numbers aren’t due until February, but analysts recently raised their estimates. Farmers have been sending more animals to slaughter, cashing in on high export demand from countries including China and the United States, where low supply has pushed beef prices to record levels.
High culling typically leads to a period of low production as producers hold back animals to breed and rebuild herds. But productivity gains in Brazil could limit or even prevent a slowdown, industry insiders say. They noticed that the farms were inseminating the cows faster, fattening them up faster and killing them younger.
“Ten years ago, the average age of cattle slaughtered in Brazil was five years,” said Vinicius Barbosa, commercial manager responsible for tens of thousands of cattle at the CMA feedlot in Barretos, about 260 miles (420 km) north of Sao Paulo. “It’s now 36 months and going quickly to 24,” he said.
Mauricio Nogueira, head of livestock consultancy Athenagro, said Brazilian beef production had far exceeded his 2025 forecast. The production grew 4% for the year, where a decrease of 2.7% was predicted. The increase of about 800,000 tons was about equal to the total annual exports of Argentina, the world’s No. 5 beef consignor.
Rabobank, which had expected Brazil’s beef production to decline in 2025, now sees a growth of 0.5% to 12.5 million tonnes equivalent in carcass weight. The US Department of Agriculture in December raised its estimate for Brazilian beef production by 450,000 tonnes to 12.35 million tonnes.
If the official numbers confirm market estimates, 2025 will be the first year that Brazil’s production will have exceeded that of the United States, which fell 3.9% to 11.8 million tons in 2025, according to USDA estimates, after years of drought.
FEEDLOTS, DRIVE OUTPUT CARCASES WEIGHT RISES
US beef production will further decline 0.9% to 11.7 million tonnes in 2026, the USDA said. In Brazil, the USDA and Rabobank project a decrease in production, but Nogueira said that the increase in productivity could actually boost Brazil’s production by about 300,000 tons.
Almost 28% of cattle slaughtered in Brazil will be fattened in feedlots by 2027, up from 22% in 2025, according to consultants Scot Consultoria.
“Feedlots do in 100 days for cattle what the pasture does in 18 to 24 months,” said Barbosa, adding that the Barretos feed of the CMA will process 80,000 cows in 2026, from 65,000 last year.
Brazil’s growing corn ethanol industry is generating a byproduct known as dried distillers grains that has higher protein than corn and helps cattle heat up faster, analysts said.
Cows are becoming pregnant more often as farmers adopt more efficient insemination techniques, allowing producers to slaughter more animals without reducing herd size.
Scot Consultoria expects Brazil’s pregnancy rate – the proportion of females that become pregnant during a breeding season – to rise to 54% in 2027 from 50% expected in 2026.
Better genetics are also improving cattle growth and boosting meat quality, analysts say. And Brazil has not yet compared the proportion of 90% of cattle that pass through feedlots as in the United States, or the 40% of Australia.
If Brazil’s pregnancy rate rises to 66%, equivalent to neighboring Argentina, the number of calves born each year will rise from around 32 million to 40 million, according to consultants Datagro. The pregnancy rate in Canada is 96%, they said.
Government data shows that Brazil has 238 million cattle, well over double the 94 million in the United States Higher productivity allows production to expand without increasing cattle numbers or grazing area. This could alleviate one economic driver of the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.
Brazil’s livestock herd is expected to grow by just 4% between 2024 and 2034 while beef production will increase by 24%, according to Brazilian beef exporters group ABIEC. US beef production will increase 3.5% and cattle numbers will grow 5% during that period, according to USDA estimates.
BRAZIL LEADS AS HIGH-SCALE PRODUCERS
Global beef prices will depend on whether Brazil can avoid production cuts this year.
The USDA expects production in the world’s six largest producers to decline in 2026 by a combined 2.4% – the biggest annual decline in decades – after rising 0.4% in 2025. These producers are Brazil, the United States, China, the European Union, Argentina and Australia. The list excludes India, which the USDA names as one of the six major beef producers even though that country produces more buffalo meat than beef.
The USDA expects Brazilian production to decline by 5.3% to 11.7 million tonnes of carcass weight equivalent this year. If Nogueira’s estimates are confirmed and production instead rises to around 12.6 million tonnes, the decline in the top six producers would be only 0.2%.
“There has never been so much international demand for Brazilian beef,” said Guilherme Jank, a Datagro analyst, adding that local beef packers have also increased capacity.
“We are witnessing firstly a significant change in the way the beef cattle supply system works in Brazil, in terms of quality, scale, efficiency, and productivity,” he said.
(Reporting by Ana Mano in Barretos and Peter Hobson in Canberra Additional reporting by Ella Cao in Beijing and Tom Polansek in Chicago Editing by Brad Haynes and David Gregorio)
