News that Taiwan has suspended all pork exports indefinitely because of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease presents Canada’s hog industry with an enormous opportunity in Japan, says the executive director of Canada Pork International.
Jacques Pomerleau said Monday that just 10 days after he was complaining about improper Taiwanese pork trade to Japanese meat buyers, the situation has completely changed.
“Taiwan has 45 percent of the Japanese import market. We are talking about the equivalent of six million hogs that need to be replaced,” Pomerleau said.
Read Also
Land crash warning rejected
A technical analyst believes that Saskatchewan land values could be due for a correction, but land owners and FCC say supply/demand fundamentals drive land prices – not mathematical models
The world’s pork exporters will all vie to capture a portion of the new market and Canada must gear up to be with them because the situation will probably not be a short-term disruption, he said.
“The (Taiwanese) minister of agriculture estimates one-third will have to be destroyed and government sources estimate that at best, Taiwan will remain self- sufficient,” he said.
Unfair trading
Two weeks ago, Pomerleau and Canadian agriculture minister Ralph Goodale were complaining to Japanese officials about Taiwan using unfair means to get around Japan’s pork import levy.
Japan banned all pork imports from Taiwan on Friday, the day after Taiwan announced its foot and mouth disease problem.
Reuter News Agency reports the wholesale price of pork in Tokyo rose by more than 10 percent Friday. A spokesperson for Nagasakiya Co. Ltd., a major supermarket in Japan, said his company was switching to U.S. and domestic production.
“Our top priority at the moment is to shift to alternative sources as soon as possible, but we have no immediate plan to raise retail prices,” he said. However, Japanese production increases are not expected because of environmental pressures.
Pomerleau said several Canadian meat packers have long-standing relationships with Japanese pork buyers and will have to figure out how they can increase sales given limited Canadian pork supplies.
“Does it mean they need to short another market? Do they want to short the domestic market?”
Hog prices may rise
An American agricultural economist estimated that Taiwan’s removal from the marketplace would increase U.S. hog prices by $4-$5 a hundredweight for the rest of the year.
John Grimes, of the University of Missouri, based his forecast on the assumption the U.S. would gain two-thirds of Taiwan’s share of the Japanese pork export market.
In Taiwan, the situation is causing an economic crisis. Hog producers threatened to set free hundreds of diseased pigs in the capital Taipei to protest what they viewed as the government’s failure to control the disease and insufficient aid for producers whose herds are being slaughtered.
The Taiwan council of agriculture has found so far 37,569 pigs on 5,919 farms have contracted the deadly and contagious disease. Producers estimate the number of infected hogs at 150,000 out of a total population of 14 million.
Taiwan television showed producers complaining of government inaction and bursting into tears as health officials electrocuted pigs suspected of being infected.
Local newspapers reported some veterinarians had warned agriculture and health authorities of a possible outbreak of the disease a year ago, but the government failed to act.
Taiwanese pork exports totaled more than $2 billion in 1996. Government figures showed the export ban could cost 50,000 jobs.
