Mea Culpa

An astute reader caught an error in last week’s story concerning USDA beef market projections. The story mistakenly reported this year’s production, imports and exports in “million” pounds, when the figures should have been reported in “billion” pounds. The corrected language is:

Beef production this year is expected to finish at 27.12 billion pounds, up 0.6 percent over last year. The growth is less than what was expected, but weather, lower weights, and lower slaughter numbers all contributed to slower production growth. Beef imports are projected to finish the year at 2.96 billion pounds, beef exports at 3.10 billion. Thus, the U.S. is expected to end the year with a slight trade surplus in beef.