Canadian beef - where does it go?

摘要

For many years I have maintained a "Beef Supply and Usage" balance sheet. Now, at the end of 2014 - a most remarkable year for the cattle industry -1 want to share the 2014 version with you.When one considers the cattle and beef industry, one should consider the entire productive performance or "productive capacity" of the national herd. Too oftenwe fragment the industry by speaking, for example, of "beef exports," forgetting that live slaughter and feeder-cattle exports are also a major component of industry production. Thus it is possible to state, for example, that 59 percent of beef production (not including live exports) is consumed in Canada and 41 percent of beef production (not including live exports) is exported, and of that exported portion,76 percent went to the U.S. and Mexico and 24 percent went to offshore markets. The above is factually correct if we consider only beef exports and overlook the large component of industryproduction that is exported live. In my spreadsheet I convert all the data on live cattle and beef to a common denominator, which is a retail weight basis. This makes sense, because the purpose of beef production is beef consumption and thus production should be expressed in consumption terms. I also express the final result in metric terminology, the language of international trade. Thus, to give a simple example, a 1,400-lb steer becomes a 635-kg animal and, with a dressing percent of 61 percent, hasa carcass weight of 387 kg. This translates into a retail weight of 283 kg, with the accepted conversion from carcass to retail weight being 73 percent.