April 25, 2013

US pork imports to Mexico have reached 600,000 tonnes during 2012, a rise of 25% over 2011, said the country's Ministry of Agriculture (Sagarpa).

However, these "historic level" imports have led to multi-million dollars losses for local Mexican pork producers, said José Luis Caram Inclán, president of the Mexican Pork Producers Confederation.

Caram added that local consumption of US produced pork has only increased within the past year.

"For every imported kilo, we can lose anywhere from US$0.25 to US$0.30. It turns into a US$32 loss per hog. If we consider that the equivalent to 50,000 hogs is imported every day, then we have losses beyond US$1.6 million on a daily basis," he said.

As a result, local pork producers experienced a US$65.2 million loss in the first three months of the year, Caram added.

The USMEF reported that 600,949 tonnes of pork products were sold in Mexico in 2012, a 12% increase over the previous year, which generated US$1.126 billion in sales.