A Note Of Warning About Beef Production

Press, Volume C, Issue 29626, 23 September 1961, Page 6

A Note Of Warning About Beef Production

DESPITE all that is written and said about increasing our beef production, the practical £ s d angle must be watched,” says an article in the sixty-first “Annual Review” of Pyne, Gould, Guinness Ltd. "There are outlets for beef certainly, but it is wise to bear in mind these three most important words—'at a price.* “The American market for our prime beef in carcase form has practically disappeared. Any bids are at a very low level quite out of line with local buying prices. The only acceptable form of export prime beef to the United States now is in specialised cut form packed in cartons, the more detailed the cutting the better the opportunity of placing it at a satisfactory price. Although quartered prime beef is almost unwanted in North America, and the prices offering very low by previous American standards, yet these prices are still in excess of what the exporter is likely to get in the United Kingdom, where greatly increased Home production, plus beef from Australia, Argentine, Jugoslavia, Rhodesia, and other African sources has brought prices to what seem to be permanently low levels. “It would also be wise to remember that although the Argentine is in the doldrums at the moment she is striving might and main to conquer both her political disabilities and foot and mouth disease. The latter keeps her beef out of the United States, Canada and Japan, and probably other markets as well. She recently sent missions to

Jupan and the United States to push for beef sales but foot and mouth was the hurdle.

“One of these days she will beat foot and mouth disease and then the question will be how long will it take on a ‘low cost’ basis to run New Zealand out of the Japanese and American markets? The Argentine has always

been prepared to take less for its chilled beef than New Zealand expects to get for her best frozen beef on the United Kingdom market. The Argentine, it must be remembered, is still the world’s largest beef exporter and if it was without foot and mouth disease no other country could adequately compete.”