U.S. farmers look to China for more business as the devastating impact of African swine fever on the Chinese pork industry trumps concerns about trade wars and tariffs via tpolansek Nigel Hunt
WALCOTT, Iowa/LONDON - It might seem an unlikely time for U.S. farmers to look to China for more business but the devastating impact of African swine fever on the Chinese pork industry is trumping concerns about trade wars and tariffs.
The catch for U.S. hog farmers is that if they want to take advantage of the surge in Chinese pork demand, they can’t feed their pigs with the growth drug ractopamine which is widely used in the United States but banned in China. Paustian said his buyer at Tyson Foods Inc. , the biggest U.S. meatpacker, was considering paying a premium for pork free of ractopamine, which is also banned in the European Union, and that could push some farmers to stop using it.
Diana Souder, a Smithfield spokeswoman, declined to comment on the specific changes but said the company upgraded a plant in Smithfield, Virginia as “part of a broader initiative to better organize our production to meet demand”. According to data from the U.S. Meat Export Federation, U.S. pork exports to China and Hong Kong rose 33% in May from a year earlier to 45,442 tonnes - though exports for the first five months of 2019 were still 7% lower than in 2018.
“They’re going to have to get this pork from somewhere,” said Williams, who formerly led export sales and futures trading for Cargill’s meat business unit. “The U.S. is going to benefit, so is Brazil and Europe.” China is not the only country hit. There have been outbreaks of swine fever in Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia, North Korea and Laos. It has also already spread across parts of central and eastern Europe and even been found in wild boars in Belgium.
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