U.S. red meat production from foreign-born animals

Michael J. McConnell, Kenneth H. Mathews Jr., Rachel J. Johnson, Keithly Jones^*

US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Washington DC, USA..

DOI: 10.4236/as.2012.32023                

Abstract

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) propelled the integration of livestock markets among the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Along with vertical integration within the respective industries, different sectors of the cattle and hog industries have shifted their production locations based on resource efficiencies. Imports of live cattle and hogs, as well as beef and pork, in the United States have been steadily increasing since the implementation of NAFTA, except during the restrictions on cattle and beef imports from Canada due to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (bse) discoveries there in 2003. There are limited empirical sources that relate the importation of livestock to the domestic U.S. production of meats. This paper introduces a methodology to estimate the amount of U.S. beef and pork production that can be attributed to foreign-born cattle and hogs. The procedure uses official U.S. trade data to quantify livestock imported at various weights and stages of production and projects the final production date and weight using existing data and literature.

Keywords

Beef; Livestock; Pork; Trade

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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