The USDA has released export statistics on U.S. meat products and U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) has compiled a summary. U.S. pork exports showed modest improvement in September while beef exports endured the most difficult month in some time.

September pork export volume was up 6 percent from a year ago to 172,012 metric tons (mt). Export value was $456.1 million, down 11 percent year-over-year but the highest since May. Pork exports through the first nine months of the year declined 4 percent in volume (1.58 million mt) and 17 percent in value ($4.21 billion) compared to January-September 2014.

Beef export volume fell 21 percent from a year ago in September to 79,474 metric tons (mt) and value was down 28 percent to $456.6 million – the lowest since January. For the first nine months of 2015, exports were down 12 percent in volume (782,705 mt) and 8 percent in value ($4.8 billion).

Complete January-September export totals for U.S. beef, pork and lamb are available from USMEF’s statistics webpage.