Cattle breeding and mainly cattle for fattening is significantly affected by the development of social, economic, structural and other changes. Among negative results of this development are serious reductions in milk consumption and the number of cattle, with the adverse effect on usage of soil and permanent grasslands, as well as on the employment in the agrarian sector. Considering the production and out-of-production functions performed by the breeding of cattle, it is necessary to achieve its stability in all categories, to increase domestic milk and beef consumption, and to improve production and reproduction indexes, which have a serious impact on production economy and thus on competitivness in relation to cattle meat producers in the EU. From the short-term aspect it is possible to solve beef shortage by importing slaughter cattle with a lower carcass weight. However, this alternative can only be considered in case that a sufficient number of slaughter animals is available. A serious decline in the number of slaughter cattle can influence in the future the foreign trade with this commodity and a total increase in passive balance in a similar way to slaughter pigs where the import of 60 ths. tons of pork is expected along with a growth in grain export. From the above it follows that the export of basic agricultural stock is increasing and more value-added products are being imported, which can be considered to be a very unfavourable state in terms of the present development of the Slovak agriculture.