Page 73 - Farm and Food Policy Strategies for 2040 Series

The project, Schultz said, has been a success and that goes a long way toward showing poultry
producers and political leaders there and in neighboring countries that success breeds success and none
of that is possible with closed borders.

“If you don’t have an open market for importing grain, you’re going to be limited by what you
can produce domestically and that’s currently what the problem is in all these countries — these
very protectionist markets,” Shultz said. “We need to convince the local industry that they can
benefit by importing raw materials, whether it be poultry houses, refrigeration or feed grains in
order for their industry to grow.”

Africa is also where the U.S. Meat Export Federation is stepping up its long-range activities,
using countries like South Africa and Morocco — two countries that recently opened to U.S.
beef and pork — as stepping stones to other markets that will hopefully become big customers
years from now.

“Africa is a good example of a region where we still don’t have much product going there,
but it looks a lot like Central America did years ago,” said Joe Schuele, USMEF’s
communications director. “You need a critical mass of markets in the region that feel like they
offer us sustainable business.”

USDA Chief Economist Rob Johansson
agrees that Africa, especially the Sub-
Saharan countries, will offer substantial
markets in the future, but he cautioned that
lack of political cohesion across the many
sometimes unstable governments will be a
limiting factor that sets the continent apart
from markets in China or India.

“China has one national voice,”
Johansson told Agri-Pulse. “Sub-
Saharan Africa has different
governments and it’s been a challenge
for a lot of those countries to generate sustained economic growth. We expect higher rates
of growth in Africa over the next 20 or 30 years. Is it going to be as high as China or India?
Maybe not, but it’s going to be a big market for us eventually.”

East Asia

China, already the largest agriculture commodity importing nation in the world, is a dream
market for the U.S. beef industry and has been for years because of the sheer numbers. Twenty
years from now, U.S. packers can already envision sending hundreds of millions of dollars’
worth of beef to China. That’s definitely possible Schuele said, but only if U.S. exporters can get
a fair crack at sales.

“China is the fastest growing beef import market in the world and the momentum has not
slowed,” Schuele said. “They’re importing more and more beef from just about every supplier,
but we’ve largely been on the sidelines because of the product restrictions.”

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