September 15, 2009

US pork exports in January through July are lagging behind last year's pace amid a difficult global economic climate and lingering effects from the AH1N1 flu outbreak.

 

The most recent statistics released by USDA and compiled by the US Meat Export Federation (USMEF) show pork exports of 1.08 million tonnes valued at US$2.53 billion.

 

While these totals are a respective 10-percent and 9-percent below last year's record-shattering pace, they are still 53-percent higher in volume and 48-percent higher in value than in January-July 2007.

 

Mexico has been a tremendous bright spot for US pork throughout 2009, but the surge in exports to Mexico suffered a setback recently during the AH1N1 flu outbreak.

 

Through April, pork exports to Mexico were running 71-percent above last year's pace in terms of volume and were 62-percent higher in value.

 

The results for May, June and July have been roughly equal to 2008, however, leaving Mexico with totals of 287,687 tonnes valued at US$426.5 million, 42-percent higher than the 2008 volume and 23-percent higher in value.

 

Japan remains the pacesetter for US pork in terms of value, reaching 259,451 tonnes valued at US$944.1 million through July. While these results are only slightly above the 2008 volume, they exceed last year's value by 11 percent.

 

Other markets showing significant improvement include Australia (up 22 percent in volume and 21 percent in value) and the Caribbean (up 42 percent and 35 percent, respectively).

 

Pork exports to China had already slowed significantly prior to the market closing in early May due to AH1N1 flu.

 

USMEF Chairman Jon Caspers notes, however, that being essentially shut out of this market for the past four months is a setback the pork industry simply cannot afford.

 

Caspers said expectations for China were modest for this year, as the country would have much higher domestic production, adding that being shut off completely from the world's largest pork-consuming market is a very serious blow for the industry.     

There is no relationship between pork consumption and AH1N1 flu, and consumer attitudes toward pork appear to have recovered quickly despite the media's persistent mislabeling of the virus as "swine flu."

 

Pork exports to Russia are also down about 30 percent compared to last year, due in part to state-specific, AH1N1-related market closures in May and June.

 

Exports have also slowed due to the continued delisting of many US pork plants by Russia. The good news, however, is that July pork exports to Russia - 19,625 tonnes valued at US$43.1 million - nearly doubled in volume and more than doubled in value over the June 2009 totals.

 

US pork exports are also holding up fairly well in terms of percentage of total production. Pork and variety meat exports accounted for 22.8 percent of January-July production, compared to 24.7 percent during the same period last year. Muscle cut exports accounted for 18.3 percent of production, compared to 21.5 percent in January-July 2008.