US beef exports for May were a record 133,400t, valued at just over $904m (€766m).

It was similar for pigmeat, with 283,617t in May, the third largest on record, with the value a record $813m (€689m).

This reflects a strong supply of beef and pigmeat in the US from COVID-related processing disruption in 2020, as explained by Rupert Claxton Gira in a Bord Bia webinar on Thursday.

Asia is the main destination for US beef exports, with South Korea taking 29,403t in May, a record, and putting the January to May 2021 volume at 121,881t, up 20% on 2020.

The food service sector has been a particularly strong outlet for US beef.

After the frustration in April from Japan triggering its safeguard mechanism, US exports rebounded in May to 131,423t, 2% lower than the same period last year.

It was another big performance in China, with 16,472t being just below the record volumes in April.

Pigmeat

Despite a drop in volumes of 22% on the same period in 2020, China remains the top export market for US pigmeat, taking 408,896t between January and May this year.

Mexico is the second main export market for pigmeat, taking 71,300t in May, bringing volume in 2021 up to 325,747t, followed by Japan, which took 36,504t in May to bring the volume for the year to date up to 174,280t.

Irish pigmeat

Unlike the US, Irish pigmeat exports to China have been increasing this year.

Bord Bia's Peter Duggan told the webinar that China is now Ireland’s main export market, taking 46% of the 92,000t of pigmeat exported between January and the end of April.

China has been a turbulent market in the first half of 2021, with domestic pig prices falling up until two weeks ago when they began increasing again.

Rupert Claxton was of the view in the webinar that if this trend continues for another couple of weeks, then the second half of 2021 should see the Chinese market remain strong.

Implications for Irish farmers

Irish beef producers do not go head to head with the US, as our main export markets are Britain and the EU, where US beef has a very limited presence.

That is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, as while Ireland is making inroads in Asia with Japan and approval pending for South Korea, they will not become volume markets in the near future.

It is different for pig producers who go head to head with US supplies in both China and Japan.

Irish pigmeat exports generally trade at world market prices, as is the case with Irish dairy.

Both the US and Ireland have benefited in that there has been a reduced supply of beef available on world markets in the first half of 2021, while China continues to need large volumes of pigmeat imports, despite some recovery in production after the African swine fever problem.