While Irish beef exports resumed for the first time in two decades last year, the market has failed to become a high-volume one, taking just 1,381t this year up to the end of August.
As Joe Burke of Bord Bia explained at the Gain Feeds and Merial beef finishing event in Kilkenny on Friday, no Irish manufacturing beef has yet been exported – even though the Irish and US governments agreed the certificate back in July.
Putting the volume of Irish beef exports to the US in context, in the same period the Philippines took 7,086t and Hong Kong 9,169t. Exports beyond the EU account for 3-4% of Ireland’s total, while lamb is currently awaiting approval for the US market and doesn’t feature at all.
The failure to get manufacturing beef into the US is as much to do with falling US cattle prices, by over €2/kg equivalent from record highs in May last year, as the delay in agreeing a certificate for import of manufacturing beef.
Requirement
This is the main import requirement of the US, with Australia and New Zealand being the main suppliers to date, sending almost 600,000t between them in 2015. Brazil had a much-publicised return to the US market in recent weeks. However, reports from South America this week suggest they cannot afford to do business there, with prices for imported lean manufacturing beef being worth $3.80/kg (€3.45/kg), while they need $4.20/kg (€3.80/kg).
In this weak market, Ireland won’t do business, especially as other manufacturing beef markets are strong at present, particularly for the lean product.
Trump presidency
As for quotas and TTIP, Ireland was working from a 64,000t quota that was shared with Brazil, among others. It was expected that despite the current market hiccup they would use this themselves and Irish exporters would then have to pay a 26% import tariff, which would make trade even more difficult.
Even before the election, no US administration was going to give Ireland or the EU a quota deal outside TTIP. TTIP was described in Brussels recently as dead in the water and Trump’s hostility to free trade deals was a feature of his campaign. The view in Brussels is that TTIP was struggling anyway, but this will be the final death knell.
Irish beef exports to the US prior to the election had been fairly irrelevant in the overall context of our sales. It was envisaged as an outlet for high-end, premium, non-hormone beef at the outset, with an opportunistic manufacturing possibility when the prices are high. It hadn’t happened and the election won’t do anything to encourage it further, though in practice it won’t change anything either.
For the Irish beef Industry, it is Brexit that is the vote with catastrophic potential.
Read more
Listen: what a Trump presidency means for farmers
Irish exporters can do business in Canada
While Irish beef exports resumed for the first time in two decades last year, the market has failed to become a high-volume one, taking just 1,381t this year up to the end of August.
As Joe Burke of Bord Bia explained at the Gain Feeds and Merial beef finishing event in Kilkenny on Friday, no Irish manufacturing beef has yet been exported – even though the Irish and US governments agreed the certificate back in July.
Putting the volume of Irish beef exports to the US in context, in the same period the Philippines took 7,086t and Hong Kong 9,169t. Exports beyond the EU account for 3-4% of Ireland’s total, while lamb is currently awaiting approval for the US market and doesn’t feature at all.
The failure to get manufacturing beef into the US is as much to do with falling US cattle prices, by over €2/kg equivalent from record highs in May last year, as the delay in agreeing a certificate for import of manufacturing beef.
Requirement
This is the main import requirement of the US, with Australia and New Zealand being the main suppliers to date, sending almost 600,000t between them in 2015. Brazil had a much-publicised return to the US market in recent weeks. However, reports from South America this week suggest they cannot afford to do business there, with prices for imported lean manufacturing beef being worth $3.80/kg (€3.45/kg), while they need $4.20/kg (€3.80/kg).
In this weak market, Ireland won’t do business, especially as other manufacturing beef markets are strong at present, particularly for the lean product.
Trump presidency
As for quotas and TTIP, Ireland was working from a 64,000t quota that was shared with Brazil, among others. It was expected that despite the current market hiccup they would use this themselves and Irish exporters would then have to pay a 26% import tariff, which would make trade even more difficult.
Even before the election, no US administration was going to give Ireland or the EU a quota deal outside TTIP. TTIP was described in Brussels recently as dead in the water and Trump’s hostility to free trade deals was a feature of his campaign. The view in Brussels is that TTIP was struggling anyway, but this will be the final death knell.
Irish beef exports to the US prior to the election had been fairly irrelevant in the overall context of our sales. It was envisaged as an outlet for high-end, premium, non-hormone beef at the outset, with an opportunistic manufacturing possibility when the prices are high. It hadn’t happened and the election won’t do anything to encourage it further, though in practice it won’t change anything either.
For the Irish beef Industry, it is Brexit that is the vote with catastrophic potential.
Read more
Listen: what a Trump presidency means for farmers
Irish exporters can do business in Canada
SHARING OPTIONS