Farmscape for September 13, 2019

The National Pork Producers Council warns the longer Chinese tariffs on U.S. pork remain in place, the more difficult it will be to recover market share lost in that country.
Although African Swine Fever has devastated Chinese pork production resulting in a dramatic increase in Chinese pork prices, the United States has been shut out of that market as the result of Chinese tariffs on U.S. pork.
The impact of the U.S. China trade dispute was among the topics discussed yesterday as part of a National Pork Producers Council media briefing.
NPPC spokesman Nick Giordano told reporters Iowa State University estimates the dispute is costing U.S. producers eight dollars per hog and that number could grow.

Clip-Nick Giordano-National Pork Producers Council:
The analysts believe that 50 percent of Chinese production is out.
That's the biggest pork producer in the world so China is obviously going to import more pork.
You've seen the articles, they're concerned about food price inflation.
They're going to import more pork and more meat protein.
The question is who's going to benefit?
Going back two years ago, further than that, under those economic conditions without the trade frictions, unequivocally the United  States would be the principle beneficiary.
But given the uncertainty surrounding the U.S. China trade dispute we just don't know.
Nobody knows.
Clearly there's upward pressure on global pork and meat prices worldwide because if you pull that much meat protein out of  the global meat complex it creates upward pressure on prices.
Who's going to  benefit and how much, we don't know.
Our great concern is, the longer this goes on, the less we benefit, the more places like Brazil and Europe and competing areas expand their production.
They get more of the Chinese market and then that competition presumably we've got to compete with over the long haul.

Giordano says, under more normal economic circumstances, the U.S. pork sector would be the biggest single beneficiary.
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Bruce Cochrane.

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