01/22/07 Exports and beef carcass value

American Rancher January 22, 2007 Optimizing the value of a beef carcass is important for producers and not possible without considering exports. That's according to Dr. John Scanga, an associate professor of animal science at Colorado State University, who says it's often products considered useless here that make the most difference elsewhere. Dr. Scanga says short ribs are an example of optimizing carcass utilization. Scanga: "In the United States we have a name for boneless chuck short rib, it's called 50% lean ground beef trimmings. But in markets we used to have and hopefully will have again like South Korea, Japan and so on, those are very valuable items. We can usually sell those for several dollars per pound. So we have the opportunity to fabricate many cuts that we have international demand for at a higher value." There is a long list of exported products that get little U.S. attention. Scanga: "Livers, hearts, kidneys, tongues. All of those products have some value on the U.S. market but it is very small and there is a very small demand for them. You look at countries like Egypt, Russia, Mexico. What you are dealing with are countries that have greater populations of people at lower economic status that don't have as much disposable income to spend on food and really are looking a real affordable, inexpensive source of high quality protein." Dr. Scanga was a presenter at the International Livestock Congress, held in conjunction with the National Western Stock Show in Denver. I'm Bob Hoff.