US meat processor, Swift & Company, announced on February 2 that it is reducing production levels at its Cactus, Texas, beef processing plant in response to market conditions.

Production at the Cactus processing plant will be reduced to four days for a week. The company stated that this was as a result of the continued closure of key export markets to US beef and the continued closure of the Canadian border to the importation of live cattle under 30 months. It claimed that the inability of US-based processors without production facilities in Canada to access less-costly live Canadian cattle - while the US border remains open to boxed beef from those same cattle - puts US beef processors at a severe competitive disadvantage.

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