Stocker

Changes in U.S.-Mexican Cattle and Beef Trade

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:36:55 GMT

—Derrell S. Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist

Mexico has long been a major beef industry trading partner with the U.S. in roles that have continually evolved into deeper and more integrated relationships. For many years, Mexico has been the major source of imported feeder cattle. U.S. beef exports to Mexico developed in the late 1990s and Mexico has been one of the top beef export destinations since then.

Most recently Mexico has emerged as a top source of beef imports into the U.S. All of these markets have been rather dynamic in recent years and raise the question of what the nature of U.S. and Mexican cattle and beef trade will be in the future.

Since 2009, U.S. imports of Mexican beef increased by 268% to make Mexico the fourth largest source of U.S. beef imports. Mexico exports beef to a number of countries including Japan, Russia and South Korea and Mexican beef exports have more than doubled since 2009. Beef exports to the U.S. represented just over 40% of total Mexican beef exports in 2012.

U.S. imports of Mexican beef are up again so far in 2013 and are on pace to increase another 30% by the end of the year. Most of the beef imported from Mexico is middle meats from fed cattle.

The dramatic increase in Mexican beef exports is the result of a rapid conversion of the Mexican beef industry from a carcass to a boxed beef marketing system. This has opened new market opportunities in both domestic and international beef markets. It is not clear how potentially large the market for Mexican beef in the U.S. is, but there appears to be room for additional growth.

U.S. exports of beef to Mexico have declined since 2008 and are declining again in 2013. Since 2008, a combination of higher U.S. beef prices and exchange rate impacts have made U.S. beef more expensive in Mexico and are undoubtedly the major reason for declining beef exports to Mexico. However, Mexican beef prices have risen sharply in the past 18 months and domestic beef prices in Mexico are once again close to U.S. beef prices. This may help stabilize U.S. beef exports to Mexico in the second half of the year. However, high beef prices in Mexico is curtailing consumption and it is hard to anticipate much increase in beef imports from the U.S. with both domestic and imported beef in Mexico at record price levels. U.S beef exports to Mexico are likely to level off and could recover some of the recent declines in the face of expected decreased domestic beef production in Mexico in the next couple of years.

High U.S. cattle prices and drought in Mexico resulted in large and growing U.S. imports of Mexican cattle since 2010. The 2012 total of 1.47 million head was the second largest level of Mexican cattle imports since the 1995 record level of 1.65 million head.

Cattle imports from Mexico in 2012 included the largest number of spayed heifers ever imported while the number of steers actually decreased from 2011 totals. It is apparent that recent levels of cattle exports from Mexico are not sustainable and represent herd liquidation. The rate of cattle imports into the U.S. dropped sharply in late 2012 and so far in 2013.

Total imports of Mexican cattle into the U.S. in 2013 are on pace to decrease by more than 40 percent and may drop even more. Total imports of less than 800,000 head are likely for the year. Mexican herd liquidation in recent years likely means diminished beef production in Mexico and diminished levels of cattle exports to the U.S. for several years.

Climate Change Will Diminish Big Bluestem Growth

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 21:29:50 GMT

Climate change is expected to reduce the growth and stature of big bluestem, a dominant prairie grass, by up to 60% over the next 75 years. That’s the consensus of scientists from Kansas State University, Missouri Botanical Gardens and Southern Illinois University collaborating on a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Global Change Biology.

“Our results predict that climate change could greatly impact the tallgrass prairie as we currently know it, reducing forage for cattle in the drier parts of grasslands, place like Kansas,” said Loretta Johnson, professor of biology at Kansas State.

Big bluestem is a common grass in natural and restored prairies across the central Midwestern region that includes Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri and Iowa. Big bluestem is readily in found Kansas’ Flint Hills, a region of tallgrass prairie covering 9,936 square miles. The region’s economy is largely dependent on agriculture and cattle ranching.

Big bluestem – or Andropogon gerardii – can grow to four to six feet tall, but the researchers found that could be reduced by up to 60%. As a result, the form of big bluestem that grows in the central Midwest could come to resemble the form that currently inhabits eastern Colorado on the edge of the species’ range. The tall forms of big bluestem could shift to the Great Lakes region where the grass is currently less common.

The research team, in addition to Johnson, included Mary Knapp, associate agronomist and state climatologist; and Jacob Alsdurf, master’s student in biology. They found most of the change was because of alterations in rainfall that are expected to occur across the area, not because of increase temperatures.

The authors are concerned the dramatic reduction in size of big bluestem foretells a fundamental shift in the nature of the Midwestern grassland ecosystem.

“Because big bluestem is currently a dominant grass species of the Great Plains and makes up to 70 percent of the plant biomass in places, how the ecosystem works could be affected by predicted changes in growth of this species,” Johnson said.

“It was said in the past that the tallgrass prairies were so tall that a person riding a horse could literally get lost,” said Adam Smith, assistant scientist in global change at the Missouri Botanical Garden. “Big bluestem is an iconic species in this system owing in part to its stature. If smaller forms come to dominate it could cause a fundamental shift in the habitat and ecosystem services prairies provide, such as forage for cattle.”

Big bluestem grass can live several decades, so prairie restoration projects will need to consider the form of plants that would thrive at a site several decades into the future, researchers said.

The analysis also highlights the effects of climate change on common species that typically are not expected to be as vulnerable to anticipated climate change. Worldwide, 1 in 5 plants is already on the brink of extinction and climate change is only expected to add pressure on species struggling to survive. This study indicates that common species also may be vulnerable, researchers said.

Cattle Grazing and Clean Water Can Coexist on Public Lands

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:37:32 GMT

Cattle grazing and clean water can coexist on national forest lands, according to research by the University of California (UC), Davis.

The study, published today in the journal PLOS ONE , is the most comprehensive examination of water quality on National Forest public grazing lands to date.

“There’s been a lot of concern about public lands and water quality, especially with cattle grazing,” said lead author Leslie Roche, a postdoctoral scholar in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences. “We’re able to show that livestock grazing, public recreation and the provisioning of clean water can be compatible goals.”

Roughly 1.8 million livestock graze on national forest lands in the western U.S. each year, the study says. In California, 500 active grazing allotments support 97,000 livestock across 8 million acres on 17 national forests.

“With an annual recreating population of over 26 million, California’s national forests are at the crossroad of a growing debate about the compatibility of livestock grazing with other activities dependent upon clean, safe water,” the study’s authors write.

“We often hear that livestock production isn’t compatible with environmental goals,” said principal investigator Kenneth Tate, a Cooperative Extension specialist in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences. “This helps to show that’s not absolutely true. There is no real evidence that we’re creating hot spots of human health risk with livestock grazing in these areas.”

The study was conducted in 2011, during the grazing and recreation season of June through November. Nearly 40 UC Davis researchers, ranchers, USDA Forest Service staff and environmental stakeholders went out by foot and on horseback, hiking across meadows, along campsites, and down ravines to collect 743 water samples from 155 sites across five national forests in northern California.

These areas stretched from Klamath National Forest to Plumas, Tahoe, Stanislaus, and Shasta-Trinity national forests. They included key cattle grazing areas, recreational lands and places where neither cattle nor humans tend to wander.

UC Davis researchers analyzed the water samples for microbial and nutrient pollution, including fecal indicator bacteria, fecal coliform, E. coli, nitrogen and phosphorous.

The scientists found that recreation sites were the cleanest, with the lowest levels of fecal indicator bacteria. They found no significant differences in fecal indicator bacteria between grazing lands and areas without recreation or grazing. Overall, 83% of all sample sites and 95% of all water samples collected were below U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) benchmarks for human health.

The study noted that several regional regulatory programs use different water quality standards for fecal bacteria. For instance, most of the study’s sample sites would exceed levels set by a more restrictive standard based on fecal coliform concentrations. However, the U.S. EPA states that E. coli are better indicators of fecal contamination and provide the most accurate assessment of water quality conditions and human health risks.

The study also found that all nutrient concentrations were at or below background levels, and no samples exceeded concentrations of ecological or human health concern.

The study was funded by the USDA Forest Service, Region 5.

To read the study, visit, http://bit.ly/11G9Adv
You can learn more about grazing and water quality at http://rangelandwatersheds.ucdavis.edu/ .