Agricultural News
From the Cattlefax Market Outlook Seminar- International Trade
Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:58:05 CST
There was a bit of optimism in the Beef Trade portion of the Cattlefax Market Outlook Seminar held on Thursday at the Cattle Industry Convention in Denver. Brett Stuart of Cattlefax told cattle producers that Cattlefax beleives we will have a 24% increase in beef exports in 2009 versus 2008- a lot of that attributed to the ability to ship beef to South Korea for twelve full months. Cattlefax expects the actual export totals to come in over two billion pounds in 2009, with South Korea expected to take some 468 million pounds of that in the current calendar year.
The biggest negative in the export arena right now is the fall off in variety meats- and that has hammered the drop credits- dropping them sharply from July 2008.
Stuar points to two key issues for 2009- one that could be a potential negative and the other a potential positive.
The first issue revolves around COOL and the possibility that two of our biggest beef customers, Canada and Mexico, may be alienated by how cattle from those countries are facing substantial discounts.
Exports to NAFTA countries are worth $50 to $60 per head and some or all of that value is at risk because of this new law which remains in flux with the finalized rule being put on hold by the Obama Adminisration.
The second issue centers around what could be if the US was able to convince the Japanese to accept beef from animals that are older than 20 months of age. Brett Stuart told the cattlemen and ladies that if that threshold could be raised to 30 months of age- that would secure another billion dollars of value very quickly for US producers, with the increase likely to be around $4 per hundredweight.
We have Brett Stuart's presentation in full available by clicking on our listen bar below.
Brett Stuart Presents the Outlook for International Trade at the Cattlefax Outlook Seminar in Phoenix
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