China to lift ban, pork industry sighs in relief

The ban has yet to be lifted, but National Pork Board president Tim Bierman, of Larrabee, Iowa, has no doubt this will have a widespread positive impact on the pork industry.

"From 2005, 2006, 2007, China was purchasing about $23 million in pork products per year just from Iowa alone," Bierman said.

That was forced to a standstill when China banned U.S. imports in May.

Then the pork industry hit the perfect storm, Bierman said.

High input costs -- feed -- collided with a high supply in the number of pigs on the market due to production efficiency.

Then came the announcement of the H1N1 flu, misnamed as the "swine flu."

Misplaced fear about pork products drove demand down, even though H1N1 could not be spread through pork, nor was it even present in hogs at that point.

Russia banned pork imports from some U.S. states and in May China banned U.S. pork imports entirely.

China officially blamed the H1N1 flu fear, but critics pointed to a possible ulterior motive: China needed to boost its own domestic hog production.

Dan Casey, at Nor-Am Cold Storage in Le Mars, which ships pork and other meat products throughout the world, said with the door to China shut, the only other major outlet was to Russia.

"And that was sporadic," he said.

With storehouses filling up, pork producers looked to the homefront for help.

Domestically, pork consumption increased this summer, Bierman said.

"A lot of retailers around the country have really helped out, running specials on pork to help the product move through the system," he said. "They're selling it too cheap, but we've got to move it."

Last week's announcement of the plan to lift China's pork ban came on the tail of a visit to China by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

China, Bierman said, is a good outlet for U.S. pork variety meats that aren't used or eaten in the United States.

"It will definitely raise the price of those products, which will in turn raise the price for the whole pig," Bierman said. "Then the packers can pay us more for them."

China hasn't officially lifted the ban yet, and even when that time comes, export numbers probably won't rise to pre-2009 numbers, Casey said.

"2008 was an anomaly in two ways," he explained. "Part of it was that buildup for the Olympics, when they had to supply more food, and part of it was in 2007, virtually China's entire hog production was struck by blue tongue and they wiped out their entire hog production."

Still, lifting the ban will have a positive effect, Casey said.

"It opens the possibilities for producers, and some of these deals could happen very quickly," he said. "We could be exporting like crazy if some of these deals go through."

The storm isn't over yet, Bierman said. Right now, pork producers are still losing money.

Some in Iowa are facing the decision of whether they're going to be able to weather the storm or if they're going to jump ship, he said.

"There are some pork producers in the state that are making some changes in their operation because of financial difficulty," he added. "We could use a lot of good news."