Expected increases in beef imports

World Outlook Board Chair Mark Jekanowski has the latest outlook for the meat trade. “No change in the beef export forecast for the current year for 2020.” However, he says the forecast for 2021 has been pulled back a bit because of a weakness in observed global demand. “From many countries, China among them, but others as well. So that's the two hundred million pound change from our forecast last month. And then a three hundred million pound reduction for our 2021 forecast relative to last month.” Meanwhile, with trade prospects for broilers…”we increased a bit for 2020 again based on some observed trends and data and increased even further for next year for 2021. And that's consistent with our expectations for lower prices going forward.” He adds that imports of beef, mostly processing grade from Australia and Argentina, are expected to increase. “This is another sort of a story that we've been telling for several months now increasing import demand for processing grade beef, largely coming from Australia and Argentina as well. But that demand continues to be strong. It goes into various food products, hamburger, etc. And so we increased our import forecast pretty strongly for 2020, one hundred seventy five million pounds and also for 2021 by ninety million pounds.