• With output growth levelling off amid rising swine productivity, post-2010 output growth has coincided with falling hog inventories • Despite the large increases in productivity, inefficient practices, decentralization, artificially high feed costs make Vietnamese pork among the world's most expensive

2016's chicken production is 21% below initial USDA forecasts for this decade. Even under the most optimistic scenario, in 2020 China will produce nearly 20% less chicken than was forecast

• After a three-year boom, high finishing weights induced a steep 40% price crash • Lower cattle prices, higher pasture rents are partly offset by lower feed costs, greener pastureland • Herd expansion will continue at a slower pace

• A 55% devaluation of Brazil's currency resulted in a 50% rise in broiler production costs • The subsequent over-exporting of corn caused its domestic Brazilian price to jump by up to 60%, the cost of imported energy and supplements also rose, boosting poultry feed costs by 50%

• A depreciated Canadian dollar makes domestic beef processing more profitable than live cattle exports, boosting slaughter rates • 2015's sharp fall in slaughter rates was partly offset by high finishing weights; 2016's increased cattle slaughter is partly offset by lower finishing weights

• Helped by a 38% currency plunge, Brazilian exports will replace most of the 300,000 tonne drop in Australian beef shipments • Over half of the 10%, 170,000 tonne export increase is from higher shipments to China and Russia

• World pork output has levelled out and is falling 1% but exports are still surging by a projected 6% in 2016 • Strong export growth is partly the result of a supply-side recovery from America's PEDv epidemic

• Within 10 years, over half of Latin American beef exports could be supplied by Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay • A 15 year, government-induced plunge in Argentine beef exports was counterbalanced by increased volume shipments from Paraguay and Uruguay

• Despite a high US dollar, the loss of Russian, Chinese and South Korean market plus a bird flu epidemic, unexpectedly strong domestic consumption, high prices boosted output strongly over the past two years

• The past decade has seen China's swine sector ignore record high hog prices • With output lagging demand, the country went from net pork exporter to the world's largest importer

•From inconsequential production forty years ago, Brazil is now the third largest feed producer and a top three exporter of all major meat lines • 80% of feed is produced in-house by the country's integrators, leaving only a minority of output commercially available on the open market

• America's December 2015 repealing of COOL laws gives the industry an important, long term boost • COOL's repeal will boost live hog exports and inventories first, followed by rising pork shipments to the US

Pork exports originating from Brazil have amounted to 62,000 tonnes in April this year, a volume that revealed a 47.2% rise over the same period in 2015.

US beef cattle are now expanding, following many years of reduction which affected the domestic and export markets. As a result, beef exports are demonstrating "an encouraging level of improvement in March, especially to key Asian markets," according to Philip Seng, the president and CEO of the US Meat Export Federation (USMEF).

• Science-based connections between feed quality, animal performance and human health are casting a shadow over consumer marketing campaigns • Feed-based livestock have higher levels of gut pathogens, which then require antibiotics, ultimately leading to antibiotic resistant infections in humans

• Due to production losses, salmon prices made two volatile price spikes, one for each supply shock • Narrowing spreads between large and small sized fish imply the rally is over and that buyer resistance is rising

• Thai integrators have transitioned mass from mass importers of feed milling technology to foreign investors and exporters of advanced agribusiness techniques • Aquaculture and ducks sustained feed demand during the difficult five years following 2004's bird flu outbreak

• New Zealand's export-driven dairy sector is far exposed to falling world prices and import cutbacks than its competitors • Recovery depends on inventory run downs both in New Zealand and its world market competitors • Rising EU production, the prospect of a lower US dollar implies intensified export competition

EU pork exports are off to a good start as shipments in January rose by over 25% to 156,000 tonnes from the same month last year.

• Can a country that pioneered raising livestock in defiance of nature successfully export chicken while cooperating with nature? • Removing AGPs without substituting natural supplements or taking mitigating measures can result in poultry efficiency and growth losses of up to 20%.

• Large dairy producers are leveraging their rising market power to extract better terms from processors • Consolidation's falling unit costs has made feed-based US dairy exports competitive with their pasture-based rivals • Vertical integration at home, rising export market shares overseas, are the wave of the future • Rising competitive pressure may induce a restructuring of Australia and New Zealand's dairy sectors

• At a time when everything from feed output to chicken consumption is falling, China's demand for beef defies recessionary conditions and continues to grow • Beef's unique consumption demographics are enabling it to defy rising unemployment, pinched mass consumer incomes • China's beef import supplier base is diversifying away from Australia to South America, and could soon include the US • It will soon dominate world beef prices in the same way it already drives markets for soy and fishmeal

• Even with constrained breeder stocks, consumption is falling by more than supplies • At 12.7 million tonnes, this is the lowest quantity of chicken meat produced since output peaked in 2012 and the smallest amount since 2010 • Production constraints coincided with import liberalization, making China a net chicken importer for the first time since the start of the decade

Europe's total pork exports last year rose 11% to 1.74 million tonnes year-on-year, as shipments to China increased by 82%, the AHDB Pork said, adding the growth materialised despite the Russian ban, which has been in place since early 2014.

• It only accounts for 3.6% of world feed output but Africa's production was expanding far faster than any other region, and will recover. • Two countries account for a majority of feed output but are also its slowest growing markets • Small countries with low, immaterial production levels will achieve feed output and growth rates worthy of multinational agribusiness investment over the next five to ten years

• Its feed sector lifted China from 10kg of per capita meat consumption in the 1970s to eating 55% more red meat than Japanese today • Government intervention played a key role in this success story • Demand for imported inputs led to feed crop hyperinflation, high food prices • China disproved that meat consumption is proportional to consumer incomes –even at low income levels, all you need is rapidly expanding feed supplies

• Once fast growing markets are decelerating but ascending frontier countries are taking their place, making for more balanced overall growth • Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and the Indian subcontinent will drive future growth • The low meat consumption in countries with rapidly growing feed output still cannot fully counterbalance large, maturing markets like China, resulting in a statistical deceleration • For the first time, within Asia itself, feed demand is now growing more rapidly outside of China

· Adjusted for inflation, dairy commodities are cheaper now than at any time since online trading began in the mid-2000s. · 2014 and 2015 price upturns are revealed to be classic 'bear market rallies' · China's recession coincided with unexpectedly high Australian, American and EU output, implying flat, soft prices throughout H1 2016

• For the first time in fifty years, one of the world's most feed rich countries will compete on the world market unencumbered by government interference • Immediate abolition of meat and feed grain export taxes, with soymeal and soya bean tariffs to follow • Abolished export quotas lets farms take advantage of high returns on export-driven livestock farming

• Falling red meat prices caused consumption to grow more slowly than output in H2 2015 • Currency exchange rates, bird flu outbreaks could upset 2016 production and trade forecasts • Broiler market share hits all-time low of 29%, could recover to 31% if all goes well