An Update on 2024 U.S. Beef Trade

Jul 18, 2024

By James Mitchell

USDA ERS published the latest beef trade data the first week of July, showing a decline in beef exports compared to a year ago. Specifically, U.S. beef exports declined 2.9 percent in May compared to a year ago. Beef imports were 10.4 percent higher in May 2024 compared to last year. Total beef exports for January through May are 4.9 percent below 2023 levels, and Jan-May beef imports are 19.5 percent above last year.

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The top five destinations for U.S. beef account for 76 percent of total beef of May 2024 beef exports. These countries include Japan, South Korea, China, Mexico, and Canada. Japan, the leading country for U.S. beef, accounts for 21 percent of total exports in May 2024. Five countries account for 83 percent of U.S. beef imports in May 2024. These countries include Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and Brazil. Imports from Canada in May are 22 percent of the May beef import total.

USDA in the June WASDE forecasts 2024 beef exports at 2.818 billion pounds, or 7.2 percent lower than 2023 exports. The USDA forecast for 2025 beef exports is 2.500 billion pounds, or 11.3 percent lower than the current 2024 forecast. Several factors contribute to lower beef exports in 2024 and 2025. These factors include economic conditions in the U.S. and other countries, exchange rates, and the relative value of U.S. beef compared to our competitors. Perhaps it is more obvious that exporting more of something is difficult when less is produced.

Weekly U.S. beef production is averaging 1.5 percent below last year. USDA forecasts 2024 beef production at 26.657 billion pounds or 1.4 percent lower year over year. USDA forecasts a 4.6 percent decline in 2025 beef production. Most of the decline in current beef production comes from declines in cow slaughter. However, as smaller calf crops and fewer heifers when herd expansion does begin, fed cattle slaughter will decline significantly. So, domestic beef production will become one of the main factors contributing to lower expected beef exports when herd expansion begins.

USDA forecasts 2024 beef imports at 4.171 billion pounds or 11.9 percent higher than 2023 beef imports. The USDA forecast for 2025 beef imports is 4.225 billion pounds and is 1.3 percent higher than the current 2024 forecast. The domestic ground beef market is the main driver of U.S. beef imports and is highly correlated with the rate of domestic cow slaughter which is the other source of lean trim for ground beef.

Source : osu.edu

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”