Excerpt from Western Europe's Beef Production, Consumption, and Trade: Situation and Outlook Per capita consumption of beef and veal in total, after increasing sharply during the l960's, has been declining since 1970 in Western Europe (veal since Beef consumption as a share of total meat consumption has also declined. However, there are wide variations by country in beef consumption levels and trends. The drop in beef consumption since 1970 would appear to be primarily due to in creased retail beef prices. In 1973, however, prices of pork and poultry rose more than did beef prices, but this did not cause a shift to beef consumption. Consumers in many West European countries, faced with sharply rising food budgets, apparently chose to economize by purchasing more pork and poultry-still considerably cheaper than beef on a per pound basis. The rates of increase now being forecast for-beef and veal production in 1974 will not cut significantly into herd size. Thus, high levels of production can be expected to continue into 1975 and 1976. Although consumption should recover somewhat in the medium term, particularly if economic growth rates pick up, the same pressures opera tive in 1974 will probably make for low levels of beef imports. Projections of long-term developments in the West European beef situation show great variation and no general consensus as to the size or direction of net imports. Increases in herd size are generally thought to be constrained by the linkage of beef and milk production. Currently, about 90 percent of West European beef production comes from dairy or dual-purpose cattle. Thus, unmanageable dairy surpluses could re sult from large herd increases. On the other hand, there is substantial room for in creased beef production through increases in carcass weights, improvements in calving rates, and particularly, further reductions in calf slaughterings. Strong growth in West European beef consumption is expected in the long run, given continued economic progress in the region. The income elasticity for beef is thought to be much higher than that for other meats, and current West European consumption levels are still quite low compared with u.s. And Canadian beef consumption. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Reviews market forecast of livestock exports, examining domestic and foreign beef production, trade policies, and consumer preferences.