Where's the Beef? Not in Argentina as Drought Drives Away Brazil's JBS

Argentines have lost their title as the world’s biggest beef eaters after the worst drought in 70 years and government export limits led ranchers to reduce the number of cattle on the Pampas. Consumption is slumping to 57.3 kilos (126 pounds) a year, the lowest since 1958 and below neighboring Uruguay, where each person consumes as much as 60 kilos annually, according to beef industry associations in the two countries. The decline in cattle numbers will “be even worse next year” because fewer calves were born during the two-year drought that ended in 2009, said Ricardo Buryaile, a rancher and congressman who heads the Agriculture and Livestock Committee in the Lower House. The reduced herd caused shipments from what was once the world’s biggest beef exporter to plunge about 50 percent this year, allowing Uruguay to pass it as a global supplier. The contraction is hurting meatpacker profits, leading Brazil’s JBS SA, the world’s biggest producer of the red meat, to consider selling plants in Argentina...more