Four members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry are pushing for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to review Brazil’s Marfrig Global Foods’ planned purchase of the majority of the shares of National Beef Packing Co.
Marfrig Global Foods on April 9 announced its intent to acquire a 51-percent stake in National Beef, the fourth largest beef company in the U.S., for $969 million. It further revealed that it plans to sell Keystone Foods, the tenth largest poultry company in the United States, for leverage to help finance the acquisition.
Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan; Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa; Joni Ernst, R-Iowa; and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, have written a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, seeking a review of the proposed purchase, and to involve the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the review process. Copies of the letter were also sent to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.
The senators are concerned that presently, USDA and FDA do not have formal representation on CFIUS.
“The security, safety, and resiliency of our food system is integral to the overall security of our nation,“ wrote the senators. “In light of recent acquisitions of U.S. food and agriculture companies such as Smithfield by Shuanghui in 2013 and the acquisition of Syngenta by ChemChina in 2016, it has become increasingly clear that growing foreign investment in U.S. agriculture requires a thorough review process to safeguard the American food system.“
The senators also referenced Operation Weak Flesh, a scandal in Brazil’s food safety system that revealed what the senators referred to as “unacceptable safety and quality issues with Brazilian beef intended for the American market.” Marfrig was involved in the scandal, the senators noted.
Stabenow is the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
