Source: EcoWarriorPrincess

Recently, I wrote a post on the import of butter into the United States in a given month. According to the excerpt that I cited, the amount in a single month was significant (as an import). Continuing along this path, the media/news outlet 'Politico' recently reported about the negotiations surrounding the export of beef to Europe. As indicated in the excerpt below, European nations want to cap the amount of 'hormone-free' beef arriving from outside nations:

How the quota works: The policy stems from a long-running World Trade Organization dispute over the EU's refusal to import U.S. beef treated with hormones. In 2009, the U.S. and EU agreed to set an annual quota of 45,000 metric tonnes (nearly 50,000 in U.S. tons) for hormone-free-beef imports to Europe, which was open to the U.S. and other nations.

After reading the ceiling of 50,000 tons for the import limit from outside nations, I wondered how many cows are needed to generate that amount of beef. Below is the analysis with the answer.

How much beef for a single cow?

To begin the analysis, the first question is searchable by using a search engine such as Google with the following question: How much usable meat from a cow? The answer is shown below:

Source: Google

Note: At first sight, the way that the question is stated might seem strange. Although, as a user enters words, the Google algorithm starts to guess what the final question is. Which I use to assemble the question. That statement was put into the blog post to cover the readers who will read the question and wonder if I know how to ask questions. Yes, the answer is in short. I am not beyond the use of assembled questions though too.

The answer indicates that from a 750 pound carcass (remains of a single cow), there will be roughly 490 pounds of 'steak'. This answer is the conversion factor which we will use to convert the total amount of meat (hormone-free beef) into cows. The conversion factor is shown below:

The total amount of usage (edible) amount of beef from a single cow is shown above to be 490 pounds of meat. Before that conversion factor can be useful in our analysis, another unit conversion must take place. The statistic cited in the introduction of 50,000 tons is expressed in units of 'ton'. In order to divide by the number above, a unit conversion needs to be accomplished from units of 'ton' to units of 'pound' as shown below:

Our unit conversion revealed that 50,000 tons of beef corresponds to 100 million pounds of beef. How many cattle does that represent? The question of interest can be answered by dividing the answer above by 490 pounds/cow as shown below:

100 million pounds of beef -- the total amount of 'hormone-free' beef allowed to be imported into Europe from outside nations requires 204,082 cows to be processed for beef!

How do 204,082 cattle as exports compare to the total amount of cattle processed for beef annually in the United States?

A quick search using Google will reveal a few answers. One of which is from a website called "Beef2Live" with the following annual world beef production statistics shown below:

Source: Beef2Live.com

I restricted the image size only to include the top 5 beef producers in the world. As you can see, the United States is the largest. The annual production of beef in the United States is around 12 million tons of beef. In comparison, 50,000 tons represents around 0.41% of Annual Beef production in the United States.

Conclusion

Wow! That really shows the restriction of imported beef into nations under the European Union from outside nations. At first sight the number might seem significant. Although, after performing an analysis and casting the statistic into perspective of annual beef production in the United States, the statistic is rather small. Further, the United States is the world's largest beef producer on an annual basis. Analyses like the one above really help a reader understand the news in relation to other reported values. The cited statistic is not really that significant as reported in the excerpt above. Although, with the status of today's global trade negotiations, every cow counts.

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