Shipments will jump 17% to 2.68 billion pounds this year, exceeding the previous record set in 2003, according to Centennial, Colorado-based CattleFax, which has researched the industry for four decades. Global trade in refrigerated meat, including overland shipments, expanded 2% to 31 million tonnes last year, Clarkson Research Services Ltd., a unit of the world's largest shipbroker, estimated.

 

The sales surge is part of an agriculture boom that will generate record income of US$94.7 billion this year as American farmers fill supply gaps left by droughts and floods ruining crops, the US government estimated. Consumers in the US faced the highest ever retail prices for beef in the first four months and costs will rise as much as 8% this year, more than any major food group, the government said.

 

"We would not have had the record-high prices without the very robust export markets," said Jim Robb, the director of the Livestock Marketing Information Centre, a Denver-based research company funded by universities, the industry and government. "In some cases, rather lackluster growth in domestic consumption is being made up for in these export markets."