02/10/06 Cattle export numbers revised

Last month Department of Agriculture experts were adding to the beef export numbers because Japan had finally agreed to reopen its borders to US beef. Then, it closed the door to American beef imports and that forced USDA chief economist Keith Collins to take another look. COLLINS "We expect the Japanese will live by their word and resume imports in the not too distant future. We assume that to be sometime in the second quarter." As a result of that, Collins says they'll lose some of the exports they previously thought would go to Japan. He's now lowering the beef export forecast. COLLINS "From 975 million pounds to 905 million pounds in calendar year 2006 and that reflects a reduction of about 100 million pounds to Japan that we previously thought would go." 905 million pounds now forecast but in 2003 before the Japanese ban, US beef imports to that country totaled two and a half billion pounds. It's going to be hard to the US to regain the Japanese market which is now supplied by Australia. Boyd Schwieder will become the chairman of US Wheat's budget committee in July. Schwieder, who farms 55 hundred acres in eastern Idaho, is the current chairman of US Wheat Associates. He'll be replaced in July by incoming chairman Leonard Schock, a Montana wheat grower. Schwieder is a former Idaho Wheat Commissioner. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott