U.S. beef sells despite poliitcal smoke screen

The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) figures on exports of U.S. beef show that totals for last month are back even with how they were five years ago, before the overblown Mad Cow Disease (BSE) scare.

Evem South Korea, where extremists egged on by U.S. vegetarians and animal rightists took to the streets to protest U.S. beef, is back to levels of purchases from five years ago. The beef obviously sells in U.S. tourist hotels and restaurants, as well as to Korean consumers, or they wouldn't import so much. There is no where for the beef to go, and no one to pay for it, if someone isn't buying it.

All the hue and cry about tainted U.S. beef being so ruined by BSE that no one would buy it, was obviously a smoke screen masking other, hidden political agendas.

U.S. beef is a quality product, far superior in taste, tenderness and texture to grass fed beef from places like Australia and New Zealand, and when it is exposed to consumers who can afford it, they will buy it.

As long as international politics and personal political agendas can be kept out of the way--a big IF--the future for U.S. beef in foreign markets is rosy indeed. But for the last five years we've seen the fragile state that is foreign trade, and the industry cannot always control that.

The old saw is "make hay while the sun shines." That couldn't be more true of U.S. beef exports, so the industry must maximize the opportunities while it's in a window of opportunity that allows it to do so.