Agricultural News
Exports Strong Despite Tight Beef Supplies, Says LMIC's Jim Robb
Tue, 10 Sep 2013 17:53:51 CDT
Even with tight beef supplies, beef exports have been strong. Jim Robb of the Livestock Market Information Center says it has been a remarkable summer as far as beef sales go in the international market.
"We have a couple of months delay until we get the official USDA trade numbers on imports and exports. Imports for the month of July were about as anticipated, but our exports were well above anticipated levels for the month of July. It tends to be one of our peak months on beef tonnage exports. And those were the largest since July 2011. That's up strongly compared to a year ago."
He says that for the last three months of data, the U.S. exported more beef on a tonnage basis than it imported, which was a trend that industry watchers didn't really expect this year and has been supportive of the markets.
Robb says that one of the key customers supporting the strong exports has been Japan.
"Japan has been a stellar performer. We're now exporting as much beef as before BSE, which would be back in 2003. On a year-to-year basis, for the month of July, our beef exports to Japan were up a whopping 46 percent from last year.
"Two other countries also stand out on a year-over-year basis; our exports to Canada were up 15 percent from a year ago, and our exports to Mexico, which have been lagging on the beef front, were up a strong 31 percent from last year."
Click on the LISTEN BAR below to hear more from Jim Robb.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network- but is also a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's show- and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
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