But New Zealand's beef industry need not be too concerned, at least in the medium term, with its position as a producer of premium quality beef likely to protect its market share, Brazil-based Rabobank senior analyst Adolfo Fontes said.
Mr Fontes, who has been speaking at a series of producer presentations, said the potential to increase production in Brazil was "huge'', through improved genetics and grain-fed systems to boost carcass weights.
A shift towards more intensive beef production systems was emerging, with expectations 20% of beef would be produced through a feedlot system by 2025, up from 10% now.
Brazilian farmers were also increasingly adopting integrated crop-livestock systems to use their maize or soybean crops.
Brazil's cattle herd stood at about 210 million head and only about 10% were dairy cattle.
There was about 170 million ha of pastoral land but about half of that had some degree of degradation, meaning average productivity was quite low.
Many grain producers were buying that land from beef producers and recovering productivity by planting the likes of maize and soybean and Mr Fontes expected to see grain producers continuing to add value to their grain by producing meat.
Farmers were also focused on improving genetics, as British and European breeds such as Angus and Hereford were increasingly incorporated into the national herd through crossbreeding.
As the world's second-largest beef producer, Brazil also held second place in global beef trade in key markets including China, Egypt, Russia and the EU.
Negotiations were on track to secure access to the US fresh beef market and the first shipment was anticipated by the middle of the year.
Although that did not mean it would sell a lot of meat to the US, it was very important to get the access in order to improve the quality perception of Brazilian meat in the international market.
It could make it easier to open new markets, like Japan, South Korea, Mexico and Canada, although that could be a long way off, Mr Fontes said.
Beef prices in Brazil were at record levels and the industry was in healthy shape.
The beef herd continued to increase.
International animal nutrition companies had arrived in Brazil, seeing the potential in increasing productivity, he said.
There were still a lot of challenges, including infrastructure problems, and political and economic uncertainty. However, with the election of a new president, he believed things would now start to recover.
Australian-based Rabobank animal protein analyst Angus Gidley-Baird said the outlook for beef over the next couple of years was positive.
The United States was still recovering from a huge liquidation of stock and, while it was growing, it was still not at the volumes of five years ago.
Australia was also going to take a number of years to recover.
Prices were still healthy but production was 16% down for the first quarter of this year and would probably be similar for the rest of the year, which was good news for New Zealand beef producers, Mr Gidley-Baird said.
South America would continue to grow but there was still going to be an imbalance where supply was less than demand and that would keep prices firm.
But, after that, the question would be how much incentive there was from Australia and the United States to get back to previous levels, he said.
