Bright Future for U.S. Meat Exports

Dan Halstrom - Senior Vice President of Global Marketing for the U.S. Meat Export Federation says the opportunity for U.S. meat exports globally is a success story and will continue to grow. One of the primary forces behind the increase in meat exports is the worldwide growth of the middle class - more people wanting meat protein in their diet.
Halstrom: “Generic population growth is important most places around the world continue to grow but economic development issue as well in countries such as Central and South America that a few years ago were not so much on the radar for U.S. meat products — today they very much are. Places like Columbia, places like Peru and this is a function of that economic growth.”
The other issue - Halstrom notes - is that other markets like Mexico and Japan are unable to keep up with the growing demand for beef and pork domestically.
Halstrom: “Economies are developing there maybe not as great a rate but they are already pretty developed. The other issue to keep in mind is the declining self-sufficiencies in the local production, a lot of these countries i.e. Japan, are not able to produce everything that they have demand for. In fact their ability to produce for their own meat is decreasing on a percentage basis — so declining self-sufficiency is also a big issue.”
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.