Taking Beef To Dubai

Dubai was the site of the recent 2014 Gulfood Show and drew a huge crowd of both food importers and buyers from around the world. While Asia is a very strong center for U.S. exports including beef, the Middle East is also a key export market. Kim Brackett is the Chair of the Cattlemen's Beef Board and an Idaho/California beef producer and says this is an extremely important place to show off U.S. beef.

BRACKETT: There's over eighty thousand people attend this show. It's a five day event and I believe there are people from a hundred and fifty two countries. It was, it was an amazing experience.

Brackett says it's really important that U.S. beef continues to grow in this marketplace.

BRACKETT: The growth potential in the United Arab Emirates is amazing. It's tremendous. And a lot of the folks that come here, tourists and business tourism, they all focus on wanting that U.S. steak. And that's the muscle meats that we're trying to move. So I think this a tremendous market for U.S. beef and we need to continue to expand this as much as we can.

She says that the Beef Checkoff is really paying off for U.S. beef producers.

BRACKETT: The export market returns nearly two hundred and forty five dollars a head in the export market alone. That's a tremendous value to U.S. beef producers and the message that I think we need to carry back home and, and relay how hard their Checkoff is working for them overseas.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.