USDA reports unusually large US beef export sales, raising doubts over data
By Tom Polansek
CHICAGO, July 2 (Reuters) – With U.S. beef prices soaring and supplies tight, the U.S. Department of Agriculture surprised meat producers and traders on Thursday by reporting a sudden increase in the nation’s export sales, raising questions about the accuracy of the data.
“Beef export sales reported in weekly USDA data include deals that may have occurred months ago and may have contributed to the spike,” the agency told Reuters. Investors said the totals still seemed excessive.
U.S. beef exports have been declining since 2022 due to high prices and scarce inventories, and the increase could further increase costs for domestic consumers already facing high grocery bills during the summer grilling season.
Beef prices have broken records this year due to strong demand and persistent drought that have forced U.S. farmers to cut cattle herds.
Net export sales of U.S. beef to be delivered in 2026 reached 126,062 metric tons for the week ending June 25, an increase of almost 500% from a week earlier, the highest level of the marketing year, the USDA said in its report. The figure may include several months of data, the agency later said in an email.
“Sales and exports must be reported in the week in which the sales and exports occur,” the USDA told Reuters. “Unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding about the reporting obligation and sales and exports were held up for many reports before being reported.”
USDA’s website stated that a total of 111,164 mt of net sales and exports were reported late, of which 38,452 mt were sold to Chile and 32,246 mt to Italy.
Both totals would shatter previous annual U.S. beef export records. According to U.S. Census Bureau trade data, the United States exported 12,885.4 metric tons to Chile in 2013 and 6,998.7 metric tons to Italy in 2012.
“None of these numbers make much sense,” said FuturesOne commodities broker Matt Wiegand.
Altin Kalo, chief economist at Steiner Consulting Group, said he thought the data was mistakenly entered into the USDA’s reporting system in kilograms rather than metric tons, causing sales to appear larger than they were.
“That’s the only thing that would make sense… that they would notify the wrong agencies,” he said.
USDA said it confirmed with an exporting company that the quantities were accurate and reported in metric tons.
“Barring further confusion, next week’s beef quantities should appear ‘normal’,” the agency said.
(Reporting by Tom Polansek. Additional reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago.)
