Clear and present danger
I would assume by now you have heard about the African Swine Fever that has found its way to China. Individuals I know claim that millions of pigs have died. It was first found in April (although not reported until August) in a small herd of 100 head.
ASF is highly contagious and 100 percent lethal with no treatment and no vaccine. In addition, the virus has the ability to live in fresh pork (uncooked) for extended periods of time and we must do everything we can to minimize the risk to our pork sector.
I am not a protectionist and I do believe in free and fair global trade. We are the best producers of nearly every ag product in the world. We just need to have a fair shot and we will get it. With that said, trade that puts our infrastructure at risk is not fair trade.
Poland also has a severe problem with ASF. Despite the fact it has ASF in the pig population in Poland, we are still importing fresh pork from Poland. What? We are importing pork from Europe? Why? To make matters worse, we are not only importing it but for 2018 to date we have increased pork imports from Poland by 28 percent. Of greatest concern is that fact that we have increased pork imports from Chile by 48 percent, Mexico by 38 percent, Northern Ireland by 33 percent and Denmark by 26 percent. Perhaps these buyers are unaware that we are producing a record number of pigs every day in the United States. Why on earth have we increased imports at this level when U.S. pork prices are so low?
While it is the risk of transmitting disease to the U.S. swine population that we should focus on, I feel it is worth noting that Smithfield Foods is owned by the Chinese based company WH Group, which just happens to have a large footprint in Poland pork production.
And just for further discussion it happens to be WH Group that also controls the port of Hong Kong where our U.S. pork goes through the black market into China as long as the ridiculous tariff stays in place. It would be fair to say that pork producers in Poland have a vested interest in China keeping a tariff on U.S. pork. I must also add here that this is the very reason we need to resolve this situation with China now through proper negotiations and not cave in to their past unfair trading practices.
The following is not a statement I ever like to share in this piece but I was told from a very reliable source that we continue to import organic soybean meal from China. I have yet to find data on the amount we import but clearly understand that a country that doesn’t have the quality controls standards in place to protect the integrity of its own human food supply cannot possibly ensure a safe, clean supply of soybean meal to the U.S. Why would we trust that they could?
Why would we be shipping “organic” soybean meal into our country? Simply because it is cheaper for our livestock feeders that are trying to meet the demands for producing organic meat, milk and eggs for specialty markets. Obviously if they are crushing soybeans and shipping organic meal here at a lower cost than what we can produce it ourselves, even in this depressed market, one must seriously question what is really going on. How “organic” really is your organic feed?
Yes, that is the final piece of the puzzle. Importing organic soybean meal to feed to our animals is a huge health hazard to the U.S. livestock sector. It is clearly time to get more details and truly put U.S.A. first so we can minimize, at every turn, the clear and present danger that foreign diseases pose.
Editor’s note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].
