by Ben Nuelle LISTEN: World of Agriculture 6-2-16
Last year, Mexico remained the largest foreign market for U.S. beef in terms of volume. What?s happening now? Chad Russell is regional director for Mexico, Central America, and the Dominican Republic for the U.S. Meat Export Federation.
He says Mexico remained the largest foreign market for U.S. beef despite a downturn.
?Last year we were down seven percent and through March of this year we are down another 14 percent unfortunately. We are certainly not selling as much beef to Mexico as we used to.?
Russel says there are several factors contributing to lower beef demand in Mexico.
?Some of the major factors contributing to that are less than bright outlook is the deep recession after the financial crisis. The next one is not having robust growth in terms of GDP.?
He says another is the devaluation of the peso.
?A day or two ago I checked and it was 18.5 pesos per dollar compared to 10 pesos per dollar in August of 2008.
Russell says there is a reason to be optimistic for Mexico.
?Mexicans herd rebuilding is behind that of the United States. The Mexican cattle producers dealt with serious drought a couple of years ago. They exported record levels of feeder cattle out of Mexico into the United States so there is not a lot of cattle in Mexico and domestic beef in the market.?
