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July beef exports increased, but there’s more to the story

July was a big month for beef exports, but a livestock market economist says that’s not the whole story.

University of Missouri’s Scott Brown says beef exports were up 5 percent in volume and 18 percent in value for July.

At first blush, he says that is very good news.  “However, when you look at the flip side of that data – beef coming into the US, there were increases from both Mexico and Canada,” he says.  “Beef exports increased about 22 million pounds, yet imports increase 31 million pounds – we actually saw net exports go down.”

He tells Brownfield the US beef industry can’t afford this to become a trend, especially as global competition gets tougher.  “When you look at how the rest of the world has been responding in terms of global meat supplies – the rest of the world has grown slower than we have in the US,” he says.  “It’s given us an opportunity to capture some market share we otherwise would have missed.  But, I don’t think the rest of the countries in the world are going to continue at the slower growth rate.”

Brown says while the US might be down for July in volume of beef exports, it is likely up in value because the US is exporting higher value beef and importing lower value beef.