Latin America Cattle and Beef Industry Overall

Introduction

 In this paper, we will briefly discuss the cattle and beef industry in Latin America and we have picked 2 countries--Mexico and Brazil as our targets of analyzing.

Latin America Cattle and Beef Industry Overall

 Industry In 2009, Latin American countries had approximately 401 million cattle and produced 8.2 million tons of beef, equivalent to 29% of the world's total production. The main beef-producing countries are Brazil (51.6% of the total Latin American beef production), Argentina (18.5% of the total Latin American beef production), Mexico ( 9.4% of the total Latin American beef production), and Colombia (5.1% of the total Latin American beef production). Latin America is a region which can significantly increase its production in response to increasing beef demand.

Mexico

 The Mexican beef market can be divided into two areas. Producers in arid and semiarid areas are mainly exporting cattle to U.S., and producers in tropical and semitropical area are supplying domestic beef market. The cattle inventory in Mexico is more than 23 million head in 2007 and there is a substantial number of cattle are exporting to U.S. due to its competitive advantage in feeding cattle.

Brazil

 Brazil in the largest country in South America and in the Latin America region. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geography area and by population with over 193 million people. Its economy is the world's fifth largest by nominal GDP and the world's sixth largest by purchasing parity. over the last 10 years, beef production has become one of the most important activities which generate employment and social wealth for Brazil. Brazil has the world's largest beef products company JBS. JBS is the world's largest beef producer and export company, has a daily slaughtering of 90,290 head of cattle.