Nigeria, a Win for US Beef Producers, Dairy Checkoff Dollars Redirected

For more than a decade, U.S. beef faced technical barriers in Saudi Arabia that left only a small fraction of U.S. production eligible for the market. With those obstacles now removed, the U.S. Meat Export Federation is ramping up efforts to reintroduce U.S. beef to importers and other prospective customers in Saudi Arabia, USMEF President and CEO Dan Halstrom,

“Saudi Arabia has held a lot of promise for a long time. It's a very young demographic, one of the youngest in the world, under 30 years of age, and the prospects for future growth are just huge. The total global imports were over a billion dollars of beef globally into Saudi Arabia, which we had a very very small portion of, you know, less than $10 million. But there was an export verification EV program, which really had some overly restrictive feed traceability requirements.”

And USDA data shows that since April, when access for U.S. beef was expanded, exports to Saudi Arabia have doubled from a year ago in volume and value, with volume at 575 metric tons and value at 6.2 million dollars.

And USDA is directing the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board to stop funding dairy checkoff projects tied to environmental science and governance, net zero, and climate neutrality initiatives. USDA says the checkoff dollars should focus on long-term value for dairy producers if it follows a lawsuit challenging the use of checkoff dollars.