Korean cattle farmers disgruntled by Brazilian beef import plan

Korean beef, or hanwoo, farmers clash with police while attempting to return a cutout model of a Korean cow, during a rally near the National Assembly, July 3, 2024. The rally came after the Sustainable Hanwoo Industry Support Act, aimed at supporting hanwoo livestock farms, passed the National Assembly's plenary session but was discarded after then-president Yoon Suk Yeol exercised his presidential veto. Korea Times photo by Choi Joo-yeon

Korean cattle farmers have criticized President Lee Jae Myung over his initiative to advance Korea’s beef trade with Brazil, saying it will worsen the market competitiveness for Korean beef (hanwoo) and impact cattle farmers' businesses.

Hanwoo Association, based in Seoul, said Thursday that Lee made the order to bolster trade between the two nations without fully assessing the impact the deal would have on Korean hanwoo farmers.

Following Lee's summit with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brasilia on Monday, the government announced a plan to dispatch health and quarantine experts to Brazil in August to inspect the country’s beef industry and confirm its qualitative conditions before importing Brazilian beef. The measure came after the two presidents met in Seoul in February and signed a four-year action plan for 2026-29, agreeing for Korea to assess the import risks of Brazilian beef.

The group condemned the plan, saying it came even before Lee confirmed how bilateral beef trade could harm the domestic hanwoo market and prepared countermeasures to protect Korean cattle farmers.

The association pointed out the government’s existing support for Korean farmers, such as the free trade agreement direct payment program for income support and a farmers and fishermen mutual growth fund, is insufficient for covering trade-bound risk.

The association cited statistics showing that the direct payment program for income support — paid by firms that benefit from free trade agreements — has pooled only 310 billion won ($216 million) during the past decade, less than a third of the measure’s goal amount of 1 trillion won during the period.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, left, waves to journalists alongside Korean President Lee Jae Myung during a bilateral agreement signing ceremony at the Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday. AP-Yonhap

The association said bilateral beef trade is likely to expand beyond Brazil to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, all members of the Southern Common Market, or Mercosur.

The region last year exported more than 5 million tons of beef worldwide, including 3.5 million from Brazil alone. Brazil is the world's largest beef producer at more than 12 million tons of beef per year. Korea, meanwhile, imported 468,000 tons of beef last year.

“A greater concern is that market opening may not be limited to Brazil alone. With the approval of Brazilian beef imports, it cannot be ruled out that other Mercosur member states will sequentially demand further market opening,” the association said.

“Once Brazilian beef enters the domestic market, price competition among imported beef will inevitably intensify. Coupled with shrinking hanwoo consumption and downward pressure on prices, hanwoo farms that have been enduring rising production costs will face even deeper financial distress, dealing an irreversible blow to the domestic hanwoo industry as a whole.”

The association's concerns came as Korea eliminated tariffs on U.S. beef and is set to phase out remaining tariffs on beef imports from Australia in 2028, followed by Canada and New Zealand in 2029.

“While tariff barriers for major exporting countries are successively disappearing, adding Brazilian beef to this market liberalization will further compound the shock the hanwoo industry must endure,” the association said.

“If additional megatrade agreements are pursued without proper complementary measures, the hanwoo industry —the very backbone of our rural economy and a unique agricultural asset of Korea — will be driven into an irreversible crisis."