What's in the Way of U.S. Beef Trade?
With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.
We’re continuing our discussion of meat exports today with Dean Meyer, past chair of the U.S. Meat Export Federation. Yesterday we talked about cultural differences adding value to cuts of meat…for instance, beef tongue bringing $3 per pound here in the U.S. but $24 a pound at a Japanese grocery story.
Today, that open-ended question: challenges. Meyer listed a small U.S. beef cattle herd, depressed currencies making our product more expensive, and stagnant trade policies…
“In order for us to market, we need a trade policy, NS a free and fair trade policy that we can market with no tariffs. qw have not had a new trade policy since I believe it was probably the Phase 1 China Agreement. And I’ve been involved in this long enough. I’ve been in countries before we had a trade agreement. I was in Columbia on the shirt tails of the free trade agreement there. And today Columbia is one of the top 5 pork export markets. Korea, you know Korea in 2010 imported zero beef. Two years ago they became our number one beef export target. So we need trade policies”
Dean Meyer, USMEF past chair.
