In a tenuous trade market, it is always nice to get good news about Ag product exports. The August census data came out for pork and beef exports from the United States. The U.S. Meat Export Federation is feeling pretty good with the numbers.
Pork saw a very strong showing for the month of August. We saw an increase of 22% from one year ago to 221,586 metric tons. USMEF Economist Erin Borror says while much of this growth can be attributed to an increase in purchases from China, it is not the only place where we saw export growth.
Borror says we are seeing exports to Mexico come closer to what they used to be. However, because of tariffs, it may take until 2021 to recover to 2017 levels.
On the beef side of the equation, there was a four percent decline in exports compared to August 2018. This is not to take anything away from beef?s still strong numbers. Borror says we are looking at a decrease in exports in Japan and South Korea. However, locking down a trade pact with Japan should help these numbers recover. There is little worry about the Korean numbers.
Borror also said beef exports to places like Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Central and South America were still very good.
