SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS DECEMBER, 1982 IMPACT OF MEAT IMPORTS ON LEAST-COST UNITED STATES BEEF PRODUCTION

Meat imports have been a source of con- such encompass slightly different geographic troversy in United States agriculture for more areas than the five supply regions. The central than 20 years. Beef producers early contended receiving point in each consumption region also that imports unduly restricted their incomes and differs from the supply points. The Northeast placed the domestic livestock industry at a dis- Region, omitted as a supply region, is included as advantage. In 1964, the Congress enacted the a consumption region (Figure lb.). Meat Import Bill (P.L. 88-482), limiting imports The LP model is a multistage, multiproduct, of meat to approximately 7 percent of domestic interregional competition model of beef produc-red meat production. Consumers consequently tion, processing, and distribution in the contigu-complained that limitations on imports have con- ous United States. The following description in-tributed to higher retail beef prices. Periodic de- cludes a summary of major components of the cisions to adjust quota levels occurred in 1968 model. Detail description of the model is given in and 1977. New legislation, the Meat Import Act Kennedy. of 1979 (P.L. 96-177), includes a countercyclical adjustment factor based on moving averages of a. Beef Supply Regions domestic cow beef production. Previous studies have examined the effects of imports on American aggregate livestock and meat prices and supplies (Crom; Houck; Freebairn and Rausser). However, previous re- REAT search has not accounted for beef industry ad- PLAINS justments that could occur in response to the SA NTO STERLING+ TRAL presence versus the absence of beef imports. This paper examines the configuration of beef IT production in the U.S. with and without imports WES SOTH\ under specified assumptions