Agricultural News
Global Growth Committee Addressing Exports and Millennial Beef Demand
Wed, 30 Jul 2014 10:24:42 CDT
When cattle producers from across the nation gather in Denver this week for the Cattle Industry Summer Conference, international trade will be a key topic of discussion. The midyear meeting for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the American National Cattlewomen and the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion Board allows them to meet and plan strategy for the coming year.
Beef exports are a key component to the prosperity of the beef industry right now. Larry Pratt, owns a cow-calf and stocker operation near Eliasville, Texas and serves as chairman of the Global Growth Committee. This committee is set to meet on Thursday, July 31. He previews some of the issues the committee will be focused on this week.
"We're still looking at a good year on exports, we're still looking at China coming on board at some point and time," Pratt said. "Still dealing with ractopamine as far hog are concerned, but we don't know how that is going to effect beef."
Pratt's comments are featured on today's Beef Buzz. Click on the LISTEN Bar at the bottom of this story.
In early May, Mexico opened to U.S. beef from cattle of all ages, after being limited for many years to beef from cattle less than 30 months of age. Even before this change took effect, beef export value to Mexico was nearly 50 percent ahead of last year's pace.
"Mexico seems to be more than willing to import what they need and they are looking to the US to do it and we just want to keep that supply going ," Pratt said. "That's an excellent market."
"We have always known that Mexico and Canada are our closest trading partners and we sure want to keep them healthy in addition to all of the markets around the world," he said.
When it comes to Canada and Mexico, how the US treats them over this World Organization trade dispute regarding Country of Origin Labeling, that may dictate how good of customers they are in the days to come.
This week the Global Growth Committee will also sample US beef dishes that are popular in international markets. Many of these dishes feature beef cuts that are underutilized in the domestic market.
"One of things that we have been leaning toward with our international tasting is to highlight the dishes they like in Japan or in Peru or Dubai or places like that," Pratt said. "We're thinking a little bit about how we compare our millennial to those in other parts of the world and how the younger generation as they come along, how their eating habits are going to change and what new products are we going to have to export to those people satisfy their culinary needs."
Dishes the committee will sample include Japanese sukiyaki, featuring U.S. chuck roll, Peruvian anticucho, made with U.S. beef heart and baked U.S. heel meat with lemon and vegetables a popular recipe in the Middle East.
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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