Mad cow disease makes Japanese beef market in a deep depression

Introduction: according to the Japanese economic news, the problem of mad cow disease shakes the price, supply-demand relationship and consumption of the world meat market, including Japan In Japan, consumers are far away from beef, which makes the price recovery of beef in Japan has not seen good signs However, the government's series of measures aimed at restraining the chaos and turbulence of beef consumption market have not achieved obvious results On the one hand, the consumption of pork and chicken, which are the substitute of beef, has increased greatly However, it is worried about the spread of mad cow disease, and the complete cessation of the use of meat and bone meal in the feed of cattle makes the feeding cost of beef cattle increase All of these make the chaos and downturn of Japanese meat market difficult to clean up and rectify On October 26 this year, Japan's Ministry of agriculture and forestry made a new decision, that is, to conduct a comprehensive inspection of all edible cattle, and allow domestic beef that had been processed before to be sold in circulation warehouses at different stages The purpose of this is to eliminate the presence of unchecked beef in the circulation area, so as to remove consumer concerns about the safety of Japanese domestic beef But unexpectedly, the response of the meat market was quite grim The wholesale price of beef cuts for some varieties actually fell by about 20% compared with the same period in 2000 There are still some notable problems in Japanese beef market In the calf market, it is estimated that the price will be very cheap when raising and growing up in the future, so the market has begun to plummet For example, after entering October, the purchase and sale price of Japanese black hair calves born six to eight months old has only kept between 300000 yen and 320000 yen per head, which is about 50000 yen lower than the average purchase and sale price at the end of September this year The relevant group of Japanese cattle producers believes that effective work must be carried out to prevent the sharp contraction of cattle raising enthusiasm caused by the drop of calf price, that is, if the transaction price is even lower than a certain level, the differential compensation system and other measures should be established to ensure the quantity of beef supply not coming to the Japanese market But if we do this, we can make up for the loss in the short term, but in the long term, it is a big question for the professional farmers and how to prevent the decrease of the number of their beef cattle There is no one to follow among the professional cattle farmers, and the market of mad cow disease is noisy, so the cattle industry has been on the way to be abolished The atmosphere of despair is spreading The number of beef purchases in circulation inventory is still decreasing, and the future expectation for wholesalers is still negative Beef consumption in Japan is the peak season at the end of the normal year There is a large amount of beef consumption in barbecue and beef hotpot Although the price of beef with delicate meat and fresh taste is not cheap, there are always many customers flocking to it Most of the wholesalers are aiming at this peak demand season, and they start to carefully prepare and keep a certain amount of high-quality beef in the cold storage every summer But judging from this year's changes, Japanese beef on the scale of castration B3 is likely to sell only 900 yen per kilogram, and some think it can keep between 1300 yen and 1400 yen That is to say, the sales opportunity that most wholesalers come to is some kind of loss of business At the end of October, a wholesaler in Nagano county was in business bankruptcy Now Japan's beef consumption is shrinking deeply After the Japanese government issued a safety Declaration on beef consumption on October 18, beef consumption recovered 7% a week from last week But judging from the current beef market, it is almost impossible for the demand that has been greatly reduced to return to normal level Changes in the UK in the European countries hit by mad cow disease are illustrative After the 1980s, the number of cattle infected with BSE in Britain reached more than 180000, which caused people's extreme panic about BSE, and the consumption of beef dropped significantly Although the UK government has taken a series of radical measures for BSE, such as raising, epidemic prevention and marketing, which can be said to be quite thorough, up to now, the consumption amount has only recovered to the level of 75% compared with that before BSE In contrast to the UK, Japan's market environment is not much better The Japanese beef market has entered a long ice age due to the influence of mad cow disease, which may not be mistaken Ironically, it is unexpected that the serious problem of mad cow disease can become a breakthrough in the management of meat market As an alternative to beef, both sides of the meat market have increased their sales volume of pork and chicken, which "saves" the declining trend of pork and chicken prices in the meat market, and the market is off the bottom of the long-term wandering The Japanese market was affected by foot-and-mouth disease in Europe this spring, so it stopped importing pork from some European countries and regions and bought pork from North America instead, and the number increased significantly In the so-called "green and yellow" market environment, the price of pork is cheaper than the previous market, and a large number of market participants have the view that the price will be significantly lower than in 2000 However, the actual situation is that in late October, the price of pork in the Tokyo market reached up to 450 yen per kilogram (weighted average), which is more than 30% higher than that in the same period in 2000 However, the wholesale price of pork has entered an abnormal high price circle The wholesale price of chicken in the Japanese market has increased by 20% in the past two months, which is also rare for the price to fluctuate greatly In the past stage, due to the oversupply of domestic chicken production in Japan and the drag of excess, the price per kilogram of chicken drumstick meat (weighted average in Tokyo area) was only about 500 yen at the beginning of September this year, about 10% lower than that of the same period in 2000 But by late October, the price of drumsticks had risen to about 600 yen per kilogram, close to the market level at the beginning of this year But there are also concerns that if the price of chicken goes too far at a high level, the better market consumption that has emerged will shrink Other market participants believe that part of the chicken will reach a high price of 800 yen per kilogram by the end of this year The high wholesale price of chicken has separated from the special selling price of supermarkets Now Japanese consumers are deeply worried about the safety of beef consumption, and the demand for chicken as an alternative consumption is at its peak in a month There have been instances of tension in price negotiations between chicken wholesalers and chicken producers The market chaos caused by mad cow disease has affected the feed market Japan's National Agricultural Cooperative Association recently raised the price of compound feed from October to December due to the rising price of raw materials in the compound feed, which is 2% higher than that of the previous period In consideration of the fact that the price of domestic beef has fallen and the income of livestock farmers has been greatly reduced, economic organizations in various regions have refused to purchase the compound feed from the agricultural cooperative sales one after another This is also a rare special case It is expected that on October 4, the meat and bone meal which is used to produce feed will be revised on October 26 It is decided that the meat and bone meal which is produced by pigs and chickens themselves can only be used for pigs and chickens' feed However, the relatively cheap beef bone meal is still strictly forbidden to use, and the rising production cost of cattle, pigs and chickens raised in Japan is still inevitable What people don't realize is that Japan's dairy industry has also been adversely affected It is found that mad cow disease is primarily caused by cows, so the price of milk and beef has declined significantly When Japanese cattle farmers sell their cows as beef cattle, it is generally said that the income can account for 30% of the sideline business As a result, the large price drop of dairy cattle will reduce the income Therefore, the dairy farmers try to make up for the decrease of the sales of dairy cattle by increasing the income of milk In the negotiation on milk price prepared in February 2002, dairy farmers considered raising the price of milk by 2 yen to 3 yen per kilogram But dairy producers are expected to make unacceptable statements on the basis of the overall tightening atmosphere in the market So it will be very difficult to "navigate" the milk price negotiation in 2002 All this shows that the confusion and fluctuation around the commodity trend around the meat market will continue in the future and will not be easily dissipated (author:) share to feed Weibo share to: