Washington - The National Pork Producers Council said it did not expect a large number of U.S. pigs to be exported to Canada, now that Ottawa has agreed to drop a 30-day animal health quarantine.
Earlier, U.S. and Canadian trade negotiators announced a pact that requires Canada to overhaul its animal health import regulations as part of giving U.S. farmers more access to the Canadian market.
Donna Reifschneider, president of the pork group, said she did not expect a large increase in U.S. hog exports because of exchange rates and other market factors. But she said the option would be “very significant” for U.S. farmers in northern border states.
Canada previously banned imports of U.S. live hogs for slaughter because of concerns about pseudorabies, a disease that does not affect humans but can be transmitted among live animals. U.S. producers have launched a campaign to eradicate the disease from all U.S. herds by the year 2000.
In the new trade agreement, Canada said it would regionalize its regulations for the United States so that states which are declared free of pseudorabies can begin exporting hogs to Canada.
Reifschneider said a bigger trade issue was the “staggering” amount of Canadian hogs crossing south of the border for slaughter. An estimated four million hogs -- or about 20 percent of Canadian production -- will enter the United States this year, she said.
Because U.S. slaughter plants are operating at capacity, Canadian hog exports have contributed to a bottleneck. Reifschneider said she hoped the Canadian pork industry would work to increase domestic slaughter capacity.
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