The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) latest livestock and poultry forecast highlights that the EU share of global meat exports for beef, pork and poultry will fall to 15% in 2024, down from 20% in 2019.

This 5% decrease will be offset and more by increased exports from Brazil, where volumes are forecast to increase from 20% of world trade in 2019 to 26% in 2024. The USA is expected to remain steady at 22%.

The biggest decline will be in pigmeat, with exports forecast to fall 25% on 2019 levels and the share of EU pigmeat production that is exported is expected to fall from 19% in 2019 to 15% in 2024.

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The USDA points to the “growing regulatory burdens” contributing to this decline, as is managing African swine fever, which has caused herd reduction in some EU countries and also restricted access to export markets.

Regulatory requirements

The department also highlights that “EU beef production has been negatively impacted by growing regulatory requirements” and production is forecast to fall by 8% in 2024 compared with 2019.

EU exports are also forecast to decline over this period by 1%.

EU poultry meat production is forecast to increase by 2% in 2024 compared with 2019, though the export percentage is forecast to fall to 16% in 2024 compared with 2019.

The reason given for this is that HPAI - commonly known as bird flu - has not only curtailed production in the EU, it has also meant that several potential export markets for EU poultry meat are closed.

USDA beef outlook

The USDA is forecasting unchanged global beef production in 2024 at 59.1m tonnes, with increases in Brazil, China and India offsetting decline in US, Argentinian, Canadian and EU production.

Argentina’s reduction is caused by the 2023 drought leading to widespread herd liquidation, while the Canadian herd is forecast to be at its lowest in 35 years. The regulatory burden and high input prices are offered as the explanation of the EU decline.

On the other hand, production in Brazil is forecast to increase by 3% to a record 10.8m tonnes.

Global exports are forecast to increase marginally, by 1%, to 11.9m tonnes. Increased volumes from Brazil, Argentina and Australia are forecast to offset the fall in export volumes from the USA, Canada and the EU. See Figure 1 below.

China will remain the biggest importer, though volumes are forecast to fall slightly in 2024, but at 3.5m tonnes carcase weight equivalent (CWE) will still account for over one third of all global beef imports in 2024.

South Korea’s imports are forecast to increase marginally to 610,000t CWE, a 5,000t increase - the same as in Malaysia. UK imports are forecast to decline by 10,000t CWE to 380,000t.

The USDA reviews its production and trade forecast three times per year, but this is the first time it focused so strongly on the EU decline and being frank in attributing it to the regulation burden faced by EU farmers relative to the rest of the world.

The striking thing from an Irish and EU farmers' perspective is that the loss of EU production in beef and pigmeat is picked up elsewhere, particularly by Brazil.