CALF_News_October_November_2020

22 CALF News • October | November 2020 • www.calfnews.net EVOLUTION IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE Continued from page 18 the 45,000 that is specific for the U.S.), a number that will increase to 23,000 tons next year. The United States had been shipping only 12,000 to 13,000 tons prior to the agreement because the bal- ance was fully used by the competition. This new opportunity also allows us to ship beef into Europe 52 weeks of the year. Since we are doing chilled, high- end products, business customers in Europe can be assured that they can get the product every week. “This encourages more chefs to include it on the menu and more retail features,” Borror says.“Before, we were rushing to clear product in the first few days of each quarter – since the quota is managed on a quarterly basis, and it was getting used up at the beginning of every quarter.” The other development in China is that with their coronavirus findings in the Beijing wholesale market in June, they started asking processing plants globally to declare that their products were free of coronavirus. “We know there is a near zero chance of the virus being transmitted via food or food packaging, especially in these situations, because it would be unable to survive shipping times to China,” Borror says.“This caused a lot of panic and frustration in the trade – from cut flow- ers to soybeans to beef. “We’re not totally out of the woods yet on that, but the only establishment in the U.S. that was suspended was a poultry plant. China has suspended four impor- tant Australian beef plants, so there is heightened interest in U.S. beef. This goes back to before the coronavirus issue. It is not only the U.S. that has tenuous relations with China; it’s also affect- ing Canada and Australia. Canada was out of the market for the second half of last year. Every country faces their own battles with China,” she says. Trade regulations and restrictions are ever-changing and sometimes hard to keep up with.“On the demand side, we see a rebound in demand for U.S. beef. The weekly data showed a rebound in U.S. beef in June, but it did not show up in the monthly data, which is perplexing, but the weekly has shown a continuous increase through July. We are confident we’ll see a stronger U.S. beef export number total in the July data, and we should see that continue through the second half of the year.” Markets saw very strong retail demand, which helped offset the losses in food service.“There has been a strong food service comeback, especially in places like Taiwan which is a record- setting market for U.S. beef on a value basis, for the past 8 years,” Borror says. “In Japan, food service is recover- ing, but challenges persist. Fortunately, we are a big supplier into retail [not just food service] in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and this helps sustain generally strong demand,” Borror says. Alejandra Valdez, USMEF Mexico director of technical services, discusses the documentation process for red meat exports entering Mexico during a USMEF training seminar for U.S. exporters in Laredo, Texas. Biosecurity is a buzzword that made its rounds in the industry 10 or 12 years back, but has been somewhat ignored recently. It’s just a fancy term for good fences. If you want to keep the coyotes out of the chicken coop, you need a coyote-proof fence around it. We need to do the same with our ranches and feeding facilities. We need to have solid biosecurity in place and plans for mitigating problems when things go wrong. It is easy to get complacent. While we are at it, perhaps animal traceability would be a good idea. After all, if you find a coyote in the chicken coop, you want to be able to find the hole in the fence so it can be patched in order to prevent the next one from getting in.  E-mail comments to cpaladinmc@hotmail.com ALL IN Continued from page 11 “We didn’t really see a disruption in our exports until we had supply-chain issues in our own plants. As long as we can keep everything going, the demand on the export side should regain momen- tum through the second half of the year.” Beef exports are a vital component to the domestic cattle market. Our international trading partners often pay higher prices for items like chuck, short ribs, short plate, variety meats, etc.“This provides higher margins on carcasses and enables the packer to pay more for cattle when maximizing the value of each animal going through the system,” Borror explains. Over time more export dollars per head correlate with stronger cattle prices.” 