Peter Duggan, Pigmeat Sector Manager, Bord Bia
The current landscape for global pigmeat trade remains very challenging, with disease pressures in certain regions of the world coupled with evolving International trade dynamics likely to play a significant role around influencing trade flows for 2019.
The greatest disease risk facing the global pigmeat industry is African Swine Fever (ASF). ASF has been problematic for Europe in recent times, albeit this has been contained to Eastern Europe and more recently an isolated outbreak occurred in Belgium during late 2018. However, this disease has been a more significant problem in China, over 100 cases have been reported, spanning 24 provinces since the first official outbreak was confirmed in August 2018. Most cases have affected small farms, but some large modern farms have also been affected. The disease has also spread to neighbouring Mongolia, with other neighbouring countries becoming increasingly vigilant around this threat. As a result of ASF, Rabobank predict that Chinese pigmeat production will fall by between 10-20% during 2019 compared to previous year levels.
In other regions of the world, other disease threats emerged during 2018 included Foot and Mouth that occurred in Vietnam, and Classical Swine Fever in Japan have forced producers in both countries to cull part of their herd.
Despite the uncertainty around US-Chinese trade relations, strengthening Chinese pigmeat demand should allow for stronger US exports to this region this year. The fallout of Brexit will leave EU based suppliers exposed since the UK is the largest pork importer in the region. In the context of a ‘hard Brexit’, it is quite likely that exports from the EU-27 to the UK will be disrupted in Q2 and beyond.
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