U.S. Beef Exports High Thanks to Smaller Countries

Like I mentioned in my other shows this week, I want to point out I have a very resilient flu right now so that is why I sound a little gruff and stuffy today.

2022 U.S. Beef exports is on its way to breaking records by the end of the year. During the National Association of Farm Broadcasting annual meeting in Kansas City I spoke with Jimmy Taylor, a member of the Beef Council. He says the United States is on track to break last year’s all-time-high of 10.576 billion dollars in exports. By the end of the year, Taylor says those numbers should be around 12 billion.

“Biggest countries we export to, South Korea is number one, China is number two, China/Hong Kong, and then Japan is number three. Last year each of those countries went over 2 billion dollars in exports.”

“Where we are making a difference is with the smaller, newer countries. We’re developing them at a more rapid pace. That’s where we are getting the dollars to push toward this record.”

That’s not without obstacles, some coming from key players.

“Now that is in spite of some of the headwinds we’ve had. You know, inflationary pressures. We’ve seen that in the united states, as well as internationally. There’s still some Covid issues on the Pacific Rim, Japan and South Korea, but especially China, which has a zero-Covid policy… it’s hard to create beef demand if there economy is shut down.”