The Brazilian beef industry has consistently made the headlines over recent years, though not for the right reasons. In March 2017, the country’s Federal Police launched Operation Weak Flesh, which revealed a corruption scheme operating within the Ministry of Agriculture, defrauding sanitary permits and allowing meat producers to sell expired products.
Just a couple of months later, Joesley Batista, chairman of the world’s largest meat-packer JBS, became the center of scandalous bribery allegations which nearly caused Brazil’s president at the time, Michel Temer, to resign.
Now, in 2019, the beef industry is involved in a number of diplomatic disputes concerning the Jair Bolsonaro government, particularly with regard to one of the biggest buyers of Brazilian beef: the Middle East.
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