02/26/07 The challenge to beef from Brazil

American Rancher February 27, 2007 Could the U.S. beef industry go the way of the U.S. sheep industry? It's a specter Washington State University animal scientist Jerry Reeves raises when he talks about future competition from Brazil where he has done some research work. Reeves says there is a lot of room to raise cattle in Brazil. Reeves: "They have almost twice as many cattle as we do. And the only thing holding them back right now is foot and mouth disease. And I see Argentina has a state now that's cleared to bring fresh meat into the U.S. now and Brazil is working the same way. They can produce the product so much more reasonable than we can. Their labor costs, their land costs are so cheap we can't compete. And the only way I can see we can compete in the future is making a better quality product. Straight red meat we just can't compete. We must stay ahead of them in quality of product or I predict in 30 years we will have the same problem the sheep industry has now and somebody else will be producing our product because our land values are too high to raise cattle on. That is artificial but it is real too." Not that U.S. quality isn't better than Brazils right now but Reeves says we need to select cattle more on tenderness and quality and yield grades rather than on total pounds of calves we can produce, because we will get beat on that end of it. I'm Bob Hoff.