Chinese Market Could be Huge for American Beef

China closed its doors to American beef in 2003 when a case of mad cow disease was discovered, but wasn’t a major blow at the time.

University of Missouri Livestock Analyst Scott Brown said it’s a different story now because in 2013, they bought about a billion pounds of beef.

“And by 2016 that expanded to almost 1.8 billion pounds so it nearly doubled in four years. That’s growth that anybody who wants to export beef is very excited about.”

The ban on U.S. is still on, but the market it presents if the U.S. can get back into that market would be enormous says Brown because the Chinese economy is growing and they could want to add more beef in their diet. Plus, there’s an excess of U.S. beef.

“We need growing markets outside the United States for the supply of beef that we’re going to be putting on the marketplace over the next 5-10 years.”