Asian disease quickly affects global meat market
South Korea said last weekend that some cattle there have confirmed cases of foot-and-mouth disease.
As of Monday, there was no confirmation on whether the outbreak in Japan is foot-and-mouth disease, but it seems likely.
While the confirmed cases in South Korea are in cattle, the effect on international markets will be felt most strongly in pork.
South Korea was emerging as a strong regional exporter of pork, last year shipping about 80,000 tonnes to Japan.
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Jacques Pomerleau, executive director of Canada Pork, the export promotional arm of the swine industry here, thinks the disease outbreak will knock South Korea out of the marketplace for years.
In Japan, the main concern is consumer reaction: Will they be put off pork and cut back on purchases? This seems unlikely given that foot-and-mouth is not transferable to humans.
The real focus must be on South Korea’s problems. Even before the disease was confirmed, Japan, Taiwan, Australia and Hong Kong moved to cut off meat and dairy imports from South Korea.
Now that foot-and-mouth is confirmed, there will be no pork exports from South Korea for at least six months and possibly two years.
That means the 80,000 tonnes that went to Japan is up for grabs.
To produce one tonne of pork, about 15 hogs must be slaughtered so the 80,000 tonnes equals 1.2 million hogs.
The countries most likely able to fill the gap in Japan’s needs are Canada, the United States and Denmark.
The small but fast-growing South Korean meat import business will temporarily collapse because all its pork will be forced to stay at home.
But longer term, if the South Korean herd is severely culled as was the Taiwanese herd when it got foot-and-mouth in 1997, the potential for increased imports is strong.
Taiwan has moved from being a global pork exporter to being Canada’s seventh best pork customer.
All this adds up to stronger hog prices for Canadian producers.
However, there are also warning messages.
Import with care
The disease outbreaks popping up around Asia show care must be taken when importing meat or livestock products from anywhere in the region, Pomerleau said. This is especially true with goods from China because it is the suspected reservoir of the disease.
“We can’t afford to get it here because that will really destroy our industry,” he said.
