Domestic Beef Production
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. Questions remain about the possible expansion of the U.S. beef herd given the incredibly tight beef supplies.
R-CALF USA CEO, Bill Bullard says the increasing reliance on foreign beef imports has made it much more difficult to grow the U.S. herd …
BULLARD … “So, what has happened over time is we have been systematically displacing domestic production of beef in the United States. We have eliminated opportunities for cattle producers. We've eliminated opportunities to increase our herd size, and the way we did that was to become increasingly dependent on foreign sources for beef. If we go back a little over a generation ago, to 1980, for example, only about 11 percent of the beef consumed in America was sourced from foreign countries.”
Since then, Bullard says that percentage of foreign beef imports has jumped dramatically …
BULLARD … “Today, we've more than doubled that percentage. About 22 percent of the beef consumed in America is beef from any one of the 20 countries that we now import from, including Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.”
Bullard says there are 20 countries that we are now sourcing beef from, and that has displaced domestic production and created an increased dependency on these foreign countries.
