Scope
Data Sources
Product Lists and Descriptions
Conversion Factors
This page describes the data sources, product lists and
descriptions, conversion factors, and country groupings
used in the livestock and meat trade tables.
Scope
This data set contains monthly and annual data for imports and exports of live cattle, hogs, sheep, and goats, as well as beef and veal, pork, lamb and mutton, chicken meat, turkey meat, and eggs from January 1989 forward. The tables report physical quantities, not dollar values or unit prices. Data on beef and veal, pork, lamb and mutton are on a carcass-weight-equivalent basis. Breakdowns by country are included.
Data Sources
The ERS livestock and meat trade tables are based on
data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the
Census, Foreign Trade Division. The Information Section
at the beginning of each monthly Census report describes
the data as follows:
"The Census basis goods data are compiled from the documents collected by the U.S. Customs Border and Protection and reflect the movement of goods between foreign countries and the 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and U.S. Foreign Trade Zones. They include government and nongovernment shipments of goods, and exclude shipments between the United States and its territories and possessions; transactions with U.S. military, diplomatic, and consular installations abroad; U.S. goods returned to the United States by its Armed Forces; personal and household effects of travelers; and intransit shipments. The General Imports value reflects the total arrival of merchandise from foreign countries that immediately enters consumption channels, warehouses, or Foreign Trade Zones.
"For imports, the value reported is the U.S. Customs Border and Protection appraised value of merchandise; generally, the price paid for merchandise for export to the United States. Import duties, freight, insurance, and other charges incurred in bringing merchandise to the United States are excluded.
"Exports are valued at the f.a.s. (free alongside ship) value of merchandise at the U.S. port of export, based on the transaction price including inland freight, insurance, and other charges incurred in placing the merchandise alongside the carrier at the U.S. port of exportation."
Full documentation and summary statistics are available
from the U.S.
Census Bureau.
Census Bureau data are considered the official government
trade statistics, although other government agencies do
border inspections and report quantities. For example,
USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
(APHIS) checks the health of imported live animals and
reports the number of head checked. Similarly, USDA's
Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) monitors the
safety of imported meats and tallies those quantities.
These APHIS and FSIS quantities are reported weekly by
USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service. However,
while these quantities usually correspond closely to Census
data, they should not be regarded as official trade statistics.
Product Lists and Descriptions
Census Bureau data utilize a complex set of product categories
based on a coding system established by the World Customs
Organization, called the International Harmonized Commodity
Coding and Classification System, or simply Harmonized
System (HS). HS is an international standard for world
trade at two-digit, four-digit, and six-digit levels. For example,
02 = meat and edible meat offal; 0201 = meat of bovine
animals, fresh or chilled; and 020130 = bovine cuts, boneless,
fresh or chilled.
Each country has the option of supplementing the international
HS codes with greater detail to meet its own needs.
The United States adopted a 10-digit code system and
began using it for U.S. trade on January 1, 1989.
Export codes, known as Schedule
B in the United States, are administered by the U.S.
Census Bureau. Import codes, known as the
Harmonized
Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS), are administered
by the U.S. International
Trade Commission (USITC). (See Background
Information for U.S. Agricultural Trade Data for more
information on U.S. and international trade coding systems.)
Livestock and meat export codes from Schedule B (Adobe Acrobat PDF format) are:
Livestock and meat import codes from HTS, with corresponding
tariff rates (Adobe Acrobat PDF format) are:
The ERS livestock and meat trade tables report results
for nine broad groupings of products. Each grouping represents
multiple products at the HTS-10 level of detail.
Grouping |
Number of current 10-digit
product codes |
Exports |
Cattle | 5 |
Hogs | 3 |
Sheep and goats |
2 |
Beef and veal | 17 |
Pork |
23 |
Lamb and mutton | 8 |
Chickens and chicken meat |
17 |
Turkey meat |
18 |
Eggs and egg products |
8 |
Imports |
Cattle | 20 |
Hogs |
7 |
Sheep and goats |
2 |
Beef and veal |
60 |
Pork |
38 |
Lamb and mutton | 18 |
Chickens and chicken meat |
17 |
Turkey meat |
18 |
See Livestock and Meat
Trade Codes and Conversion Factors for a full
list of HTS codes and descriptions.
Periodically, commodity codes become obsolete and are
replaced, redefined, or recategorized. Once a code becomes
obsolete, data are not reported for it in subsequent periods,
but are instead reported for newly defined code(s). For
example, in July 2003 the code:
0103910000 Swine, live, nesoi [not elsewhere specified
or indicated], weighing less than 50 kg [kilograms]
each
was replaced with:
0103910010 Swine, live, nesoi, weighing less than 7
kg each
0103910020 Swine, live, nesoi, weighing 7 kg or more
but less than 23 kg each
0103910030 Swine, live, nesoi, weighing 23 kg or more
but less than 50 kg each
Data reported for periods preceding the introduction
of new codes continue to use the original codes.
Because many users of livestock trade data conduct time-series
analysis going back several years, the lists of product
codes provided here include obsolete codes that were in
effect beginning in 1989. In Livestock
and Meat Trade Codes and Conversion Factors, obsolete codes are designated with an asterisk (*) in
the product description. See Obsolete
Livestock and Meat Codes for a separate listing
of obsolete and corresponding replacement codes related
to livestock and meat trade.
Conversion Factors
U.S. Census Bureau data for meat products are typically
reported in metric tons of product weight. For beef, veal, pork, lamb,
and mutton, ERS converts the quantity data from
a product-weight basis to a carcass-weight-equivalent
(CWE) basis. ERS converts these data to CWE format because
red meat production data (the largest category in USDA’s
meat supply and utilization tables) are reported in CWE.
Of course, ERS also converts the quantities from metric
tons to pounds.
Livestock carcasses typically have the feet, head, tail,
hide, and internal organs removed, although there are
some variations across species. Carcass weight is intended
to measure the weight of skeletal muscle and bones after
the other parts listed above have been removed. Also,
for boneless meat products, the conversion factor “adds
back” the weight of the bones removed from that
portion of the carcass. For processed-meat products, such
as sausage, the conversion factors assume some fixed fraction
of the product is beef, pork, chicken, etc.
Livestock and
Meat Trade Codes and Conversion Factors contains
tables showing conversion factors used in ERS calculations
for beef, lamb and mutton, and pork products. These tables
also include obsolete codes and their associated conversion
factors.
The factors for converting product weight to carcass-weight
equivalent are based on studies of the relative weights
of carcass components, where composition is considered
by type of cut and by the shares of muscle, bone, and
fat in these parts. An ERS publication, Weights,
Measures, and Conversion Factors for Agricultural Commodities
and Their Products, provides the relevant details.
Meat and poultry measures are listed in tables 7-13.
Conversion factors are applied to the HTS codes in the aggregate product groups mentioned above, and the same conversion rates are calculated for all trading partners. The calculations provide a best estimate for trade quantities in terms of carcass weight equivalent. However, specific market conditions or government actions not accounted for in the conversion factors may influence certain calculations. Due to the aggregations needed to produce the data, these tables are not intended to be used to demonstrate compliance with trade agreements or restrictions.
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