United Kingdom

USMEF Looks At Red Meat Trade Opportunities With Mexico, Canada and the United Kingdom

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 21:39:25 GMT

With a new presidential administration set to take over leadership this month, what new opportunities might be available for red meat exports? Erin Borror, U.S. Meat Export Federation Vice President of Economic Analysis, says there are two areas of interest.

First, the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) will be reviewed in 2026 and Borror says we need to maintain tariff-free trade with the two key trading partners with little barriers. Secondly, she sees potential with the United Kingdom as there were free trade agreement attempts with the previous Trump administration.

“The UK is the only major importer of which the U.S. has basically no market share, and it’s a one-way street with trade,” Borror explains. “We actually lost access through Brexit. We lost our duty-free access because the high-quality beef quota stayed with Europe.”

Borror sees nothing but opportunities for U.S. red meat exports to the UK.

“We have basically no access into the UK for U.S. beef, and that’s a $2 billion market, of which we’re essentially out of,” she says.

She adds there is tremendous potential on the pork side as well, noting the UK imports 630,000 tons of pork a year, about $2.8 billion, but U.S. pork is hardly there.

“We just need reciprocal access,” she says. “We need no tariffs, no quotas. The UK benefits from practically unfettered access into the U.S., and we need the same into the UK.”

Borror remains hopeful for the coming year.

“The UK could be one of those markets where there should see further opportunities for U.S. agriculture, and certainly for U.S. red meat,” she says.

Your next read: Mexican Border is Expected to Open for Feeder Cattle Week of Jan. 20, Sources Say

Which Foreign Country Owns the Most Farmland in the U.S.? Hint: It's Not China

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 17:24:37 GMT

Controversy continues to grow across the U.S., and China is the primary target of the new rules. However, China doesn’t own the most farmland in the U.S., according to a new USDA report. It’s actually Canada, which accounts for 32%, or 14.2 million acres.

Rounding out the top five are the Netherlands at 12%, Italy at 6%, the United Kingdom at 6% and Germany at 5%. Together, citizens in those countries hold 13 million acres, or 29%, of the foreign-held acres in the U.S. China owns less than 1%, or 349,442 acres.

(Farm Journal)

All told, 43.4 million acres of forest and farmland in the U.S., or 3.4% of all ag land, is foreign owned as of Dec. 31, 2022. Roughly 30 million of those acres are reported as foreign-owned, with the remainder primarily under a 10-year-or-longer lease. Of the 30 million, 66% is owner-operated, 14% has a tenant or sharecropper as the producer and 12% report a manager other than the owner or a tenant/sharecropper as producer. The remaining 7% are “NA.”

USDA says the two biggest Chinese-owned companies with land holdings in the U.S. are Brazos Highland and Murphy Brown LLC, which owns Smithfield Foods. Brazos Highland reported owning 102,345 acres, and Smithfield owns 97,975 acres.

(Farm Journal)

The top five states with the largest Chinese holdings are:

Texas at 162,167 acres
North Carolina at 44,776 acres
Missouri at 43,071 acres
Utah at 32,447 acres
Virginia at 14,382 acres

USDA reports those five states combined account for 85% of China’s farmland ownership. In Texas, USDA reports China has long-term leases associated with wind energy, and in North Carolina and Missouri, ownership is tied to Smithfield and producers who contract for pork production.

More States to Take Up Possible Bans in 2024

Foreign-held farmland has become a hot button topic on Capitol Hill. Farm Journal Washington correspondent Jim Wiesemeyer thinks it will continue to gain momentum in 2024 as a political ploy used by candidates.

“It’s an emotional issue, and it’s not a simple issue either,” Wiesemeyer says. “I was recently in Missouri, and some commodity leaders worry about the negative consequences of going too far. No one’s saying China should not be watched relative to buying farmland near airports, national security is involved in that case, but more than a few farmers are looking at the potential downsides for pork producers who contract with Smithfield and the number of acres they own.”

One of those unintended consequences is playing out in Arkansas.

“I’m announcing Syngenta, a Chinese state-owned agrichemical company, must give up its landing holdings in Arkansas,” says Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, referencing a 160-acre research site owned by Northrup King Seed, a Syngenta subsidiary.

Eric Boeck, president of Syngenta Seeds North America, told Farm Journal editor Clinton Griffiths: “EPA and USDA many times require us to do work and permitting right in the same state as we’re going to sell products. One of the first things we have to make sure we figure out is how we work with the local community to make sure we’re still getting products tested in their backyard, so we have the ability to sell those products.”

(Farm Journal)

Syngenta argues if they sell that particular farm, Arkansas farmers will be at a disadvantage because research can’t be done in the same weather and soil conditions.

“We’re heavy in the soybean market in Arkansas, some of those maturity zones, we have a very significant market share and savings,” Boeck says. “We want to make sure we’re protecting those farmers’ abilities to be able to use our products.”

Wiesemeyer says the bigger issue for U.S. farmland might be solar panels, with farmers in states like Missouri reporting companies have offered to pay more than $1,000 per acre cash rent to put solar panels on their farm. At such a high price, he says it’s eating up acres of farmland, with the potential to grow even more in 2024.

US Trade Rep Tai to Discuss Biden's Trade Agenda Today

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 18:45:00 GMT

Tai will have a discussion with Foreign Policy Editor in Chief Ravi Agrawal today to discuss the Biden administration’s trade agenda. Tai is expected to signal that Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are not permanently removed from the Biden administration’s trade plans based on comments she made to Politico in an interview.

Tai continues to try to defend the Biden administration’s trade policy approach that has even come under criticism from some Democrats.

“In this time and place and in this current situation, the traditional approach to free trade agreements — which isn’t just that they do tariff cuts, but that they do tariff cuts on a fully comprehensive basis — isn’t what we need right now,” Tai said. “That neither puts workers at the center of our trade policy, nor does it solve the challenges that we have with respect to resilience and sustainability.”

Tai said she was “open minded” on FTA talks with the U.K, but said no decision has been made, commenting that “nothing is off the table.”

Tariffs on China

Regarding tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on China, Tai acknowledged she faces regular questions on what it will take to get tariffs removed and whether they will ever be removed.

“If you take a couple steps back and you look at the policy landscape, I think that better question is, what has China done to deserve our dialing back the tariffs,” said Tai.

Tai also said the tariffs need to be viewed as a tool and that they should be useful.

Bottom line

The continued go-slow approach of the Biden administration’s trade policy the first two years of Biden’s term remains unchanged. Not much there, there.

Desperate British Pig Farmers Tell Johnson: Ease Immigration Rules

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:55:05 GMT

Two sisters running a pig farm in northeast England have a message for Prime Minister Boris Johnson: lift strict immigration rules for butchers or risk seeing the pork sector collapse under the weight of overly fattened animals.

Farmers across Britain say a combination of Brexit and COVID-19 have sparked an exodus of east European workers from abattoirs and meat processors, leaving pigs to back up in barns and fields across the country.

As the pigs gain weight from the extra time spent on the farm, eating food that has also jumped in price, they risk passing the size threshold at which abattoirs impose financial penalties because they have become harder to handle.

While some have started culling pigs, others like Kate Morgan and Vicky Scott are desperately trying to keep theirs until they can go for slaughter, but they warned that tensions were running high and many farmers were quitting the job.

“The pressure is like pressure we’ve never had before, emotionally it’s absolutely draining, financially it’s crippling,” Scott told Reuters over the squeals and grunts of a couple of hundred pigs. “We’re in a fairly bad place right now.”

Industries across Britain have warned in recent months that they are struggling to maintain operations after European workers returned home in the summer, with gaps being felt on farms, in factories and throughout the freight sector.

The problem has hit pig farming hard. Making little profit at the best of times, it is now losing money on every pig sold and the National Farmers Union warned two weeks ago that up to 150,000 pigs could be culled.

TECHNOLOGY AND WAGE HIKES

Morgan and Scott say a 25% capacity cut by their abattoir has left some 5,000 pigs in the towering barns that stand out on the open, flat fields of east Yorkshire. While talking to Reuters they received news of another abattoir cancellation.

Morgan said they were doing everything they could to avoid a cull but that the pressure was building. “We are juggling everything, trying to put pigs where maybe they shouldn’t be just so that we don’t get to that situation,” she said.

She urged Johnson to ease post-Brexit immigration rules and allow European butchers to enter Britain without needing to first pass a comprehensive English language test, a requirement that the industry says is putting off workers.

The pleas have so far fallen on deaf ears. Johnson has said businesses need to wean themselves off the “drug” of cheap migrant labour and invest in technology and higher salaries to recruit enough British workers.

He has provoked the ire of farmers in recent weeks by quipping, variously, that bacon sandwiches come from dead pigs and that animals are bred on farms to be slaughtered.

“Have you ever had a bacon sandwich?” Johnson asked a Times Radio journalist when questioned about a possible pig cull. “Those pigs, when you ate them, were not alive.”

Scott says their farm has ploughed money into technology and retained staff by frequently hiking wages. The problem lies in abattoirs and meat processors where butchers are often more efficient than machines. The sisters note that higher wages in the sector would also lead to higher food prices.

Short term, Scott says a relaxation of visa rules is the only solution to get the industry straight. “Hopefully the government are listening to us now,” she said. “It’s critical, it’s very time critical and we need them to do something, now.”

(Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

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British Pig Farmers Fear Ruin as Butcher Shortage Creates Slaughter Backlog

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:54:41 GMT

Britain’s pig industry said on Monday it faces collapse after an exodus of east European workers led to a shortage of butchers and a backlog in slaughtering more than 170,000 pigs.

National Pig Association (NPA) Chairman Rob Mutimer and National Farmers Union (NFU) President Minette Batters said emergency visa measures designed to soften the impact of Brexit and COVID-19 were not working.

“The situation is utterly dire on pig farms, both in terms of the backlog, and financially,” the groups said in a joint letter to Britain’s environment minister George Eustice.

In October, the government offered six-month emergency visas to 800 foreign butchers but the NPA said it was aware of only 105 that have arrived, or are due, using the seasonal scheme.

The trade bodies warned that farms were losing money on each pig and at least 30,000 sows had been lost over the last six months, equating to around 10% of the English herd.

“We are already seeing a significant drop in breeding herd numbers, and we fear that if nothing changes, we could see a mass exodus from this industry over the next 12 months. Once we lose that production base, we won’t get it back.”

The trade bodies said tens of thousands of healthy pigs were being culled on farms by producers who have run out of space on their farms and called on the government to convene an emergency summit with the supply chain to find solutions.

In the first week of 2022, some farmers reported that as few as 50% of contracted pigs were taken by processors, they said.

Costs associated with the backlog, record pig feed costs and falling prices meant farmers have been losing about 25 pounds ($34) per pig for nearly a year, they added.

They also called on the government to encourage retailers to run marketing campaigns to increase British pork sales, thereby encouraging processors to clear the backlog.

A government spokesperson said it expected progress on reducing the backlog of pigs on farms in the coming months.

($1 = 0.7452 pounds)

(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Alexander Smith)

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Best of British: Bacon that is

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 15:23:26 GMT

Is British bacon different from American bacon?

And if so, why?

That’s just one of the questions answered in this light-hearted glide show about a trip abroad to the United Kingdom by one of the Pork staff.

Click the image below to explore central England and then be prepared to have your mouth water at photos of delicious bacon, English style … think Gammon.

Oatly Ads Banned in UK for ‘Misleading’ Environmental Claims

Fri, 28 Jan 2022 21:21:13 GMT

The popular plant-based beverage, Oatly, has recently been told to not repeat some of its advertisements in the United Kingdom after complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) were upheld, according to BBC News.

Over the past year, the company has run a series of advertisements that have compared the carbon footprint of meat and dairy to Oatly’s plant-based beverage. The bold claims generated attention from the public and the campaign group, A Greener World. After the advertisements ran, more than 100 separate complaints began to trickle in, leading the ASA to its current investigation.

Two television commercials, which portrayed children questioning their father’s decision to drink cow’s milk, claimed that, “Oatly generates 73% less C02e vs. milk, calculated from grower to grocer.”

According to BBC News, the ASA said the television ad was misleading because Oatly based the claim on comparing one of its products, Oatly Barista Edition, with full cream milk. The ASA said consumers would understand the claim to include all of Oatly’s products instead of this specific product.

“It’s clear that we could have been more specific in the way we described some of the scientific data,” said Oatly spokesman Tim Knight.

To add to the fire, a social media ad campaign from the company stated that, “The dairy and meat industries emit more CO2e than all the world’s planes, trains, cars, boats, etc., combined.”

However, the ASA said this was not a fair comparison. The company compared the full lifecycle of the meat and dairy industry , which included emissions from producing feed, using fertilizers, and transporting the food, with figures from the transport industry which only reflected emissions coming directly from the vehicles.

Furthermore, two Oatly advertisements published in newspapers stated that, “Today, more than 25% of the world’s greenhouse gases are generated by the food industry, and meat and dairy account for more than half of that.”

Once again, the ASA did not support this claim, saying that it was misleading because Oatly held meat and dairy to include fish and eggs, whereas consumers might assume it referred to a narrower definition. Oatly said it has no plans to repeat the claim and has removed posts making similar claims from its own social media channels.

According to BBC News, the ASA has it made clear it will take a tougher stance on firms making environmental statements. The regulating body said last year it would be scrutinizing such claims closely and has already ruled against a Lipton tea ad which claimed its plastic bottles were “100% recycled plastic” while the small print explained that did not include the lid or label.

British Pig Farmers Reduce Carbon Footprint By Almost 40%

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 18:47:13 GMT

British pig farmers have reduced their carbon footprint by almost 40% over the last 20 years, according to a new study led by the Institute of Global Food Security (IGFS) at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland.

The study evaluated historic data on livestock systems across England, Scotland and Wales. Due to sparse data on agricultural inputs, a new research methodology called “inverted modeling” allowed researchers to retrospectively estimate inputs, Queen’s University Belfast said in a release.

“The reason this research is so significant is that it shows an area of livestock farming where carbon footprint has been reducing over the past 20 years, almost ‘under the radar’,” Ilias Kyriazakis, a professor at IGFS, said in the release.

The UK government has set a target for carbon-neutral farming by 2050. Farmers are under pressure to reduce their carbon footprint, but evaluating this footprint requires a complex metric involving a large number of indicators including what kind of fuel is used on the farm, how the soil is cultivated, the style of land management and the types of animals and crops being farmed.

The environmental impact contribution per unit of meat from pig systems is relatively low, according to the release, but because pork is the meat type most produced and consumed globally, it is an important factor to consider.

In 2013 it was estimated that the total contribution of British pig systems to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions was 668 million metric tons CO2 – roughly 10% of GHG emissions produced by livestock systems overall.

This study showed an overall drop in the carbon footprint across the pig farming sector. For indoor and outdoor operations respectively, the study revealed reductions of 37.0% and 35.4% for Global Warming Potential (commonly known as carbon footprint); 21.2% and 16.4% for Terrestrial Acidification Potential; 22.5% and 22.3% for Freshwater Eutrophication Potential; and 15.8% and 16.8% for Agricultural Land Use, the release said.
Researchers noted the role of animal feed accounted for between 75% to 80% of this carbon footprint.

“Changes to feed ingredients, therefore, had the potential to significantly alter the carbon rating of pig farms and the industry as a whole. Specifically, the increasing trend of replacing soya imported from South America (which has a high environmental footprint associated with deforestation) with home-grown crops such as rapeseed and sunflower meal to feed pigs was found to have a significant mitigating effect on environmental outputs,” the release said.

Advances in animal nutrition and feedstuff availability were also noted to have had a beneficial effect, particularly the increased availability of synthetic amino acids and enzymes. When added to domestic feedstuffs like rapeseed, the study showed these ingredients increased nutrient availability and improved feed balance, resulting in reduced nutrient excretion in manure whilst boosting animal productivity by as much as 30%.

The study also reported that such supplements in animal feed helped lower levels of phosphorous in run-off from pig manure by more than 20%, reducing the contribution of pig systems to freshwater pollution.

Other contributors to the reduced environmental impact included changes in animal performance due to breeding for leaner and faster growing pigs, increases in number of piglets born per sow per litter and reductions in overall mortality.

“We hear a lot these days about the need for farmers to reduce their carbon outputs for the sake of the environment, especially as it applies to beef and dairy cattle farming. There is much more attention focused on ruminant food systems as they produce higher GHG emissions,” Kyriazakis said. “But I believe there are important lessons to be learned from this study – not only for better environmental management as it relates to pig farming, but potentially for all livestock systems.”

Some of the improvements identified in this study could potentially be applied to other animal systems, Kyriazakis noted, which would ultimately help move our collective agriculture systems towards a carbon-neutral model.

The study, led by Kyriazakis, in collaboration with other UK institutions, used publicly available Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) data from Great Britain from 2000 to 2020. Kyriazakis said this is the first time inverted modelling has been used to investigate the environmental impact of any livestock system, marking a departure for research into the whole area of farming and carbon, the release said. This research was published in the Agricultural Systems journal following peer review.

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Farming is Coming: A Look at Agriculture in Game of Thrones

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:25:18 GMT

The conflict in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros is nearly coming to an end and the hit television show Game of Thrones has more links to agriculture than the series lets on. Farming isn’t shown very often in the series and is occasionally mentioned in the books, but the economies of Westeros and Essos both depend on agriculture more than dragons.

The most well-known kingdom for farming is the Reach , where grain, fruit, wine and livestock are all raised. The Reach is ruled by House Tyrell, who are the second wealthiest house of the Seven Kingdoms behind House Lannister. The Tyrell’s gained their wealth because of the fertile land in the Reach. A masquerade is held the night of the harvest moon at the castle Highgarden to help celebrate the bountiful harvests of the Reach.

“The Reach is aptly named: we are the ones who give people’s hands something to do at the table. As the most fertile region of the Seven Kingdoms, we grow the lion’s share of the grains and fruit that feed this country, especially now since the ‘rebels’ have burned down the other fields,” says Margaery Tyrell , who was once Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Lady Olenna Tyrell, nicknamed the Queen of Thorns , was the matriarch of the family and a shrewd business woman. When the Tyrell and Lannister Houses decided to join forces Lady Olenna knew exactly what the Reach was bringing to the table. To help survive the wars to come and winter, House Tyrell supplied the capitol city of King’s Landing with a million bushels of wheat, half a million bushels each of barley, oats, and rye, 20,000 head of cattle and 50,000 sheep.

While not all of the Seven Kingdoms are as fertile as the Reach, many have some tie to agriculture.

The southernmost kingdom of Dorne is known for its prized Dornish wine .
The Iron Islands has some of the poorest soil which forced the Ironborn to be more like a Viking-type culture. This is made even more evident by House Greyjoy’s words “We do not sow.”
While the North is often associated with winter, the kingdom does have a number of farms. For instance, a region known as the Gift serves as a farming area for the Knights Watch to sustain itself while manning the Wall.
Pumpkins grow largest in the Vale , while wheat, corn and barley are also found in the kingdom.
In addition to having fertile bottom ground for crops, the Riverlands serve as the major grain transporter of Westeros because the centralized rivers lead to many of the port cities of the Seven Kingdoms.

The Riverlands is also home to a character only known as “Farmer” and his daughter Sally in the show who are struggling to keep raiders off their farm. The farmer takes in Sandor Clegane, aka the Hound, and Arya Stark as they are traveling. He offers to give the Hound a job working on and protecting the farm, but later has his silver stolen by the Hound. Eventually the show reveals that Sally and her father have died several years later from starvation and this leads Sandor to burying the people he had once robbed.

Across the Narrow Sea to the east on the expansive continent of Essos there are plenty of opportunities for agriculture.

The Dothraki Sea isn’t actually a body of water, but rather an ocean of grass. While there isn’t any formal ranching operations ran by nomadic warrior tribes of Dothraki, there is the potential to graze lots of livestock with the hundreds of types of grasses growing on the prairies.
Lhazar is home to sheep herders who often fall prey to Dothraki.
In the slave city of Meereen the Mother of Dragons pays for the losses of shepherds who have goats and even children killed by her dragons .

In the real world Game of Thrones has had impacts on actual farmers. A specialty livestock raiser in Northern Ireland was able to save his farm because of the HBO show. Kenny Gracey, who raises animals native to the British Isle was approached by showrunners from Game of Thrones to use some of his unique livestock. Animals appearing in the show include English Longhorn cattle, Jacob Sheep and British Saddleback pigs.

The series finale for Game of Thrones will air on HBO at 9 pm EST (8 pm CST) on Sunday, May 19.