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On January 14, 2008, ERS began publishing the livestock and meat trade tables using a new format that utilizes a new, automated production system. The new system allows for more products and more countries to be covered in the tables, access to historical data, and a seamless way of incorporating revisions.
Like the previous system, there are summary tables for monthly and annual livestock and meat trade. In addition, more detail is provided in separate tables for cattle; beef and veal; hogs; pork; sheep and goats; lamb and mutton; and chickens, turkey, and eggs. Moreover, data are now reported for broiler imports, turkey imports, other chicken imports and exports, egg-product exports, and total egg exports (shell eggs and egg products on an egg-equivalent basis).
The components of existing product groups have also been revised to more thoroughly account for the trade of all meat-related products. A full list of components and their corresponding harmonized trade codes can be found in Livestock and Meat Trade Codes and Conversion Factors. A few historical trade codes were added to make the product groups consistent over time, which resulted in revisions to historical data.
Historical data are now available for all the published product groups. On each of the products' web pages (Beef and veal: Monthly U.S. trade and Pork: Annual and cumulative year-to-date U.S. trade, for example), there is a link to an Excel file titled "All Months and Countries" or "All Years and Countries." These files contain historic data back to January 1989. The files are updated monthly along with the other tables.
Imports and exports are now reported for each country instead of the limited number of regions and countries reported previously. Each country has a numeric country code. These codes are ordered in a geographically continuous way, and when sorted, can easily be used to organize the data. This gives users the flexibility to construct their own aggregations. For example, one could develop current or previous configurations of the European Union or include/exclude Australia from a Pacific region.
The system automatically incorporates any revisions or changes made to the data series, including annual 13-month revisions. The separate "13-month revisions" file will no longer be posted. Automated processing also eliminates data entry errors and documents the procedures used.
The ultimate objective of this and other ongoing data automation efforts is to provide users with the most accurate and timely data possible. The changes to the Livestock and Meat Trade data work toward that objective. The new tables provide a more accurate, consistent, and detailed data product, while helping ERS integrate it with other data products we provide.
| Feature |
Old System |
New System |
| Summary tables available? |
Yes |
Yes
Includes Other Chickens and Eggs. |
| Output compatible with users' macros that rely on position of data rows in tables? |
Yes
But columns changed. |
Country codes provided to give consistent sort order. |
Detailed tables available?
(All countries, all years or all months) |
No |
Yes |
| Variety of file formats available? |
No
Excel only. |
Yes
Excel, HTML, PDF. |
| All countries covered? |
No
Top selected countries. |
Yes
All countries with reported trade data are available. |
| Regional aggregations of countries? |
Yes, for selected regions.
But individual countries within the region were not reported. |
No
Country codes provided to allow users to create their own aggregations. |
| All years and months covered? |
No
Coverage was for previous 2 years for annual data and previous 13 months for monthly data. |
Yes
Data available back to 1989. Commodity code aggregations and carcass weight conversions applied to all available data. |
| Country sorting based on data? |
No
Static set of countries and ranking. |
Yes
Ranking is by total trade over the time period reported and changes as the data changes. |
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