Farmscape for June 5, 2018

The National Pork Producers Council warns ongoing access to export markets is key to moving the growing volumes of pork being produced in the United States.
The United States, Canada and Mexico are involved in negotiations aimed at modernizing the North American Free Trade Agreement and, at the same time, the United States is dealing with a trade dispute with China.
Jim Monroe, the National Pork Producer's Council's Senior Communications Director, says the sooner the administration removes the uncertainty these issues have created in regards to trade, the better.

Clip-Jim Monroe National Pork Producer's Council:
The U.S, pork sector has been in investment mode for some time now.
We have seen record production levels, record export levels in recent years.
We have new investments in five new pork plants in the U.S. that have either recently come on line or that will soon come on line and when all of those are up and running, that'll be by next year, 2019, you will have seen U.S. pork production capacity increase by about 10 percent from 2015 levels.
Much of the investment that's driving that is driven by export opportunities so removing all the uncertainty that's surrounding our trade situation, not only in China but successfully renegotiating NAFTA and making sure we have continued zero tariff based access to Mexico and Canada.
It's very important to resolve all of that.
We have an outstanding product.
Our product is in high demand around the world.
We run at a trade surplus and when U.S. pork can compete on a level playing field around the world we usually win.

Monroe says export opportunities are not only important for the U.S. pork sector, they're important for the U.S economy.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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