News

February meat exports maintain strong momentum

U.S. beef exports maintained good momentum in February, with a four percent increase in export volume and a slight increase in export value compared to February 2008.

U.S. pork exports in February, meanwhile, increased nearly five percent in value.

Erin Daley, an economist with the U.S. Meat Export Federation, says strong exports combined with lower U.S. meat production should be positive for the industry.

“We’ve seen net production—just in the U.S.—of beef, pork and poultry, being down over four percent compared to last year,” Daley says, “and at the same time, we’re maintaining export growth. So we know there is a decrease of supplies available on the U.S.market.”

As we enter the grilling season and demand picks up, Daley says, we should see positive movement in prices for all meats. “We’ve started to see this a little bit on the middle meats for beef,” says Daley, “and although we still saw, for thefirst time, a negative choice-select spread for the weekly average, it leaves a lot of questions as to where prices will be going forward, if demand does start to rally.”

USMEF president Phil Seng says it’s encouraging to see the currencies of some key trading partnersbeginning to stabilize. He says that will help make U.S. beef more affordable overseas.