Agricultural News
The World Wants More High-Quality American Beef
Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:47:48 CDT
Increasing domestic demand for high-quality beef is being mirrored by increased demand internationally.
Maggie O'Quinn, Certified Angus Beef staffer and U.S. Meat Export Federation executive board member says, "It's an exciting problem to have when your demand for high-quality U.S. beef exceeds supply. But because of our growing domestic demand as we are seeing the economy normalize and there's more demand right now in the food service sector, a lot of our packers have had to fill their domestic orders first and we haven't been able to sell as much internationally."
She said she hopes the drought will ease soon and American producers can do what they do best-produce more of the world's highest-quality beef.
"We really ask the cattlemen and women of the United States to send us more cattle. Please rebuild those herds. We need their help to rebuild that supply gap that we're having this year."
Without marketing efforts worldwide, however, producers might not have the opportunity to be faced with such demand.
"Without market access, we cannot sell. And the U.S. Meat Export Federation has played a vital role in opening and regaining access to all of our international markets and still helping us work through technical barriers to trade. With open markets we're going to be able to drive more dollars back to producers' bottom lines in the United States."
Global sales would not be possible were it not for the quality-driven beef producers, O'Quinn says.
"I really think that cattlemen have done an amazing job of focusing on the beef quality assurance programs here in the U.S. Everything they do from a management standpoint, obviously, plays a role in that end product quality. And so I raise my hat to the producers and say thank you to their efforts."
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