Speaking at Rosgan, Víctor Tonelli projected firm prices for beef, with global supply set to fall nearly 15% between 2025 and 2028. The United States could become the world's largest importer in 2027 and displace China as the main destination for Argentine beef.
Argentina's cattle sector has several years of firm prices ahead and an opportunity to gain prominence in the international meat market. That was the view of livestock consultant Víctor Tonelli at the 5th Congreso Federal Ganadero organized by Rosgan in Rosario, where he projected growing global demand against a supply that will take years to recover.
Opening the sessions, Rosgan president Raúl Milano said that “the world demands endlessly,” a phrase that raised the question of how to increase meat production to meet new international requirements without losing the strengths of Argentina's cattle sector.
Tonelli explained that the global beef market more than doubled over the past twenty years, driven by the expansion of non-traditional markets —especially in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa— and by a greater valuation of animal proteins in diets and in food security policies.
“The world ran down its stocks to keep pace with this demand,” he said. By his estimates, 84% of the world's cattle herd has entered retention cycles that could last between five and ten years.
This process is already reflected in lower slaughter in several countries. In Australia, the decline reached 18%; in Paraguay, 21%; and in Argentina, 10%. As a result, the specialist projected that global beef supply will shrink by around 15% between 2025 and 2028.
For Tonelli, this situation, which guarantees good prices for cattle, represents an opportunity for the cattle chain to advance in efficiency, adopt technology and prepare to respond to an international demand that keeps growing. In Argentina, he estimated that rebuilding the herd will take between four and five years.
One of the most representative cases is the United States, where the cattle herd fell to its lowest level in 73 years. To offset that lower availability of animals, the country increased slaughter weights, although that improvement is not enough to cover its needs.
The result was strong growth in imports. Tonelli anticipated that the United States could become the world's largest beef importer in 2027, a significant shift in international trade.
For Argentina, that market represents one of the main opportunities. The consultant recalled that the country benefited from an additional 80,000-tonne quota at a reduced tariff and that, in just two years, the U.S. share of Argentine exports went from 6% to 20%.
China has also profoundly reshaped the trade map. In less than a decade it went from importing virtually no beef to buying some three million tonnes a year, becoming one of the major engines of global demand.
The European Union can be added to these destinations, where the cattle herd shrank 10% over the past decade. In that context, Tonelli highlighted the possibilities opened by the agreement between Mercosur and the European bloc to consolidate the presence of Argentine beef.
However, Argentina still has a lot of ground to conquer. As he detailed, 56% of the growth in new markets is concentrated in countries where Argentine beef has no presence, due to various trade or sanitary restrictions. “There is a huge opportunity to go after these businesses, which represent 40% of global demand,” he stressed.
The growth in international demand caught the main producing countries with increasingly tight cattle availability. Tonelli explained that, in order to respond to rising consumption, the world kept reducing its cattle stocks to the point where it is now necessary to start rebuilding them. In this context, the future of the business will be increasingly tied to exports, while domestic beef consumption will continue to decline.
