Canada's share of world pork trade predicted to decline

Thursday, June 10, 2010

The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, based at Iowa State University, has pretty much written off Canada and the European Union as players in world pork trade in the next decade.

Europe's share of world markets is predicted to fall seven percentage points from 30.3 per cent in 2008. Canada's share is expected to fall by 6.4 percentage points from the same year, while the United States will gain 13.2 percentage points.

Europe's decline followed a nearly 18 per cent increase in exports in 2008. Strict environmental regulations and animal welfare regulations are expected to limit its long term capability. There's no particular reason given for a sharp decline expected in Canada's exports. Sales of 960,000 tonnes in 2009 are expected to fall to 862,000 tonnes this year, declining to 831,000 tonnes in 2018.

At the same time, world pork trade, which fell by 12 per cent in 2009, is expected to expand by 2.28 per cent annually through this decade, reaching 115.46 million tonnes in 2019.

U.S. trade in pork is expected to rise to 2,278 million in 2019 from 1,501 million tones in 2009. That's a substantial chunk of an expected total of 5,523 million tonnes in international pork sales world wide. BP