Strong Beef Exports are a Bright Spot

Domestic demand is down but exports are strong.

Farm Futures

11/10/2008

In the U.S. there is a shift occurring, with greater demand for lower cost beef items, which has pushed the price of beef cattle down over the past several weeks. According to World Agriculture Outlook Board Chairman Gerry Bange, a positive in the beef market is that exports are improving.

The U.S. has essentially been playing catch up as far as beef exports are concerned since December 2003 when many countries banned beef from the U.S. after a case of BSE was found here.

"We are seeing somewhat of a recovery in the Korean market, things are moving along," Bange says. "We're also seeing somewhat of a recovery in the Japanese market."

Those two countries were major buyers of U.S. beef prior to 2003. The deal to reopen the Korean market to U.S. beef earlier this year was met with widespread protesting that temporarily stopped the deal that had been worked out from being implemented. However the furor has died down and just three short months later U.S. beef accounts for nearly 50% of the total value of Korean meat imports.

Bange is forecasting that U.S. beef exports in 2009 will top two billion pounds, which is up almost 10% from this year. However the U.S. still has a way to go to reach pre-BSE export levels.

"It's not a bad number compared to where we had been in the recent past," Bange says. "But it pales in comparison to the 2.5 billion pounds that we recorded back in 2003."

farmfutures.com

U.S. now beef net exporter

KTIC 840 Rural Radio - Nebraska

November 07, 2008

One of the main goals of the Beef Industry Long Range Plan came to fruition this summer, when the value of U.S. beef exports surpassed the value of imports, making the U.S. a net beef exporter for the first time since the discovery of BSE closed most international markets to U.S. beef in December 2003. Since the summer cattle industry meeting, August beef plus beef variety meat exports surpassed July totals by almost 15 percent, and set a new, all-time monthly record in terms of value. The record total of $416 million exceeds the previous record of $387 million - set in June 2003 - by 7.5 percent. Year-to-date, beef exports have recovered 93 percent of value and 75 percent of volume when compared to January through August 2003.

Mexico and Canada continue to perform remarkably well for U.S. beef, as they combined to account for about 60 percent of beef export volume and 63 percent of export value in August. Beef exports to Japan over the first eight months of 2008 totaled 113 million pounds valued at $265 million, representing an increase of 64 percent in both volume and value over last year. Beef exports to Russia are being adversely impacted by global currency trends. January through August exports to Russia totaled 63.8 million pounds valued at $67.5 million, and August exports set a new monthly value record at nearly $25 million; beef exports have gained traction in South Korea, with August totals of 27.3 million pounds valued at $62.7 million; and exports to the ASEAN region set a new record in August with a volume of 11.9 million pounds valued at $17.5 million.

kticam.com