Newly appointed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue emhasized at Thursday’s Montana Ag Summit the importance of establishing new trade agreements with countries around the world.
China has indicated t
hey will be lifting a ban on the import of U.S. beef that had been in place since the BSE (mad cow disease) scare of 2004.
Kent Bacus with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association told attendees he expects beef sales to grow tremendously once U.S. beef is allowed back into China.
“(Because of) the Chinese consumers loyalty to brands…once we are able to get our foot in the door, establish ourselves, and get our product in front of Chinese consumers, we feel like they will become very receptive of that,” Bacus says when that happens, U.S. beef sales will see tremendous growth.”
“We think it’s going to be a slow start because we’ve been out of that market for 13 years,” he said. “We haven’t been able to market our product, so we’re going to have to be able to do that first.”
He says building consumer confidence is the first step, followed by expansion. And, given the unmet demand in the Chinese market, many in the industry are optimistic of seeing a significant boost in U.S sales in the next five years.
