Op-ed: Nevil Speer’s Research Supports R-CALF USA’s Trade Concerns

For Immediate Release: July 2, 2024

Contact: R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard

Phone: 406-252-2516; r-calfusa@r-calfusa.com

 

Below please find an op-ed by R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard regarding the Nevil Speer Opinion:  Speer: Curiosity Leads To Better Answers, published May 22, 2024, in Drovers.

Nevil Speer’s Research Supports R-CALF USA’s Trade Concerns   

Op-ed by Bill Bullard, CEO, R-CALF USA

In his May 22 opinion in Drovers, “Curiosity Leads To Better Answers,” Nevil Speer reports that he dug deeper into R-CALF USA’s case study showing losses of beef cows and beef cattle operations in the Pacific Northwest in the face of hundreds of thousands of live cattle imports. My case study’s conclusion was that hundreds of thousands of annual live cattle imports displaced hundreds of thousands of PNW mother cows.

Speer attempted to disprove my case study’s conclusion by selecting three states on the opposite corner of the U.S. and finding that they had fared worse than the PNW in terms of losses in beef cows and beef cattle operations. But Speer’s research didn’t disprove my conclusion at all. It reinforced it!

You see, Speer missed the case study’s most relevant facts. Chief among them was that the PNW was a “microcosm” of the remainder of the United States’ cattle and beef industries “replete with its own import and domestic cattle supply chains, feedyards, and packers (emphasis added).”

Based on the PNW’s unique, self-contained characteristics, I wrote that the PNW “serves to inform us as to how the remainder of our nation’s cattle and beef industries are functioning while confronted with excessive imports (emphasis added).”

The plain meaning of what I wrote is this: Because the PNW is a microcosm of the entire U.S. cattle and beef industries, it is expected that every other region in the U.S. would likewise suffer the displacement of mother cows and beef cattle operations when their relevant market (the location of feedlots and packers serving the region) is inundated with live cattle imports. And, that’s precisely what Speer found.

Though Speer didn’t say how many annual live cattle imports entered the southeast region’s relevant market, we know that on average 2.1 million head of imported cattle entered the U.S. each year during the post-NAFTA case study period, and only 282,000 of those imports entered the PNW’s relevant market. That means more than 1.8 million annual live cattle imports impacted the other relevant markets outside the PNW, including the relevant markets serving cattle born in the southeast region.

Now, the relevant market (where the cattle born in the southeast are subsequently fed and slaughtered) is likely Kansas or Texas, and it’s a sure bet that those two markets are inundated each year with a large percentage of the remaining 1.8 million of those 2.1 million annual live cattle imports. I presume the number of imports in those two relevant markets is much higher than the number of imports entering the PNW.

So, albeit unwittingly, Speer has substantiated R-CALF USA’s concern that perpetual live cattle imports fed and/or slaughtered in the U.S. reduce demand for calves born throughout the U.S. and displace domestic mother cows and the beef cattle operations that would otherwise have raised those calves for their relevant market.

Speer then proceeds to deflect attention away from the contribution imports have on the decline in cow numbers and beef cattle operations by advancing the beef packing lobby’s standard talking points: Exports have increased, quality has improved, and carcasses are heavier – over 17 percent heavier, so we’re producing more with less and need fewer cattle and fewer cattle producers.

But wait! As the chart below shows, the U.S. population grew 27 percent; beef demand grew 4 percent; beef consumption increased 12 percent, retail beef prices increased 175 percent; export volume grew 84 percent; total export value increased 310 percent; export value per pound increased 124 percent; and yet, despite the increased carcass weights and all these favorable percentage increases, domestic beef production from cattle born and raised in the U.S. grew by a paltry 17 percent, while the number of beef cattle operations and beef mother cows decreased by 31 percent and 13 percent, respectively.

Factors that Foretell a Strong, Vibrant U.S. Cattle Industry
	1994	2022	Percentage Change
U.S. Population	263.5 million	333.6 million	+27%
Domestic Consumption	25.1 billion lbs.	28.2 billion lbs.	+12%
Beef Demand Index (Average Monthly, 1988=100)	81.43	84.38	+4%
All Fresh Retail Beef Prices	$2.65 per lb.	$7.30 per lb.	+175%
Volume of Cattle/Beef Exports	1.9 billion lbs.	3.5 billion lbs.	+84%
Total Value of Cattle/Beef Exports	$2.9 billion	$11.9 billion	+310%
Unit Value of Cattle/Beef Exports	$1.54 per lb.	$3.45 per lb.	+124%
Factors that Evince a Weak, Shrinking U.S. Cattle Industry
Actual Domestic Beef Production (beef from cattle born and raised in the U.S.)	23.2 billion lbs.	27.1 billion lbs.	+17%
Number of U.S. Beef Cattle Operations	906,810	622,162	-31%
Number of Beef Cows	34.6 million	30 million	-13%
Total Volume of Cattle/Beef Imports	3.2 billion lbs.	4.1 billion lbs.	+28%
Total Value of Beef/Cattle Imports	$3 billion	$10.7 billion	+257%
Unit Value of Cattle/Beef Imports	$0.92 per lb.	$2.62 per lb.	+185%

 

Readers should ask: If imports are not a reason, then why are we losing cattle producers and cattle in the face of all these favorable industry gains? And, why is the percentage growth in imports higher than the percentage growth in domestic production?

**Note to editors: This op-ed first appeared on Drovers.com.

Bill Bullard is the CEO of R-CALF USA, the nation’s largest nonprofit trade association exclusively representing U.S. cattle producers in the multi-segmented beef supply chain.

Bullard’s photo is available here.

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Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA) is the largest producer-only cattle trade association in the United States. It is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle and sheep industries. For more information visit www.r-calfusa.com or call (406) 252-2516.