Farmscape for June 1, 2018

The National Pork Producers Council is calling a swift resolution of the United States-China trade dispute to pave the way for increased U.S. pork exports to China.
Economists with Iowa State University estimate U.S. pork producers have lost 2.2 billion dollars on an annualized basis due to events leading up to and following China's 25 percent punitive tariffs on pork in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel.
Jim Monroe, the National Pork Producers Council Senior Communications Director, says the longer uncertainty lingers the bigger the problem becomes.

Clip-Jim Monroe-National Pork Producers Council:
Last year total exports were valued at about six and a half billion dollars.
Of that, a little bit more than a billion dollars went to China so that's a significant portion of our overall exports in 2017.
China is the biggest pork consuming nation in the world.
When you've got uncertainty folks will think twice about investments and the export opportunities in China and in other parts of the world are not only important for the U.S. pork sector but they're important for the overall U.S. economy,
We've got more than 500 thousand jobs in the U.S. that are directly tied to the U.S. pork industry.
Of those jobs about 110 thousand are directly tied to pork exports.
I think some important context for the importance of exports, if I haven't already made that point, is if you look at last year, in 2017, the average value of a hog was 149 dollars.
Of that, 53 dollars is tied to exports to China and other export markets.
That's obviously a huge share of the overall value of a hog and a strong indication of how important exports are to the sector.

Monroe says it's really about reinforcing the importance of removing uncertainty surrounding export opportunities in China and other important export markets.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork