Reading Time: 3 minutes Beijing/Chicago | Reuters — U.S. producers of pork, already saddled with duties enacted in an earlier round of the escalating trade dispute with China, are bracing for further pain after Beijing hit the products with additional tariffs due to come into effect next month. China implemented a 25 per cent duty on most U.S. pork […] Read more
U.S. pork, fruit producers brace for second wave of Chinese tariffs
Multi-storey hog hotels elevate Chinese industrial farms to new levels
Reading Time: 4 minutes Yaji Mountain, China | Reuters — On Yaji Mountain in southern China, they are checking in the sows 1,000 head per floor in high-rise “hog hotels.” Privately-owned agricultural company Guangxi Yangxiang Co. Ltd. is running two seven-floor sow breeding operations, and is putting up four more, including one with as many as 13 floors that […] Read more
Hog prices steadying as barbecue season nears
Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada — With barbecue season on the horizon, prices for Canadian pork rose during the week ended April 27, breaking out of their month-long fall. The timing could be perfect, as negotiators have already begun working on improving trade relations and cancelling proposed tariffs on Chinese imports of U.S. pork and other goods. “Prices […] Read more
Pork supply issues hit Maple Leaf’s Q1 ledger
Reading Time: < 1 minute Reuters — Meat packer Maple Leaf Foods posted a smaller-than-expected quarterly profit as lower prices and a temporary interruption in supplies hurt sales of its pork products, sending its shares to their lowest in nearly two years. The company, one of Canada’s biggest pork processors, said that processed fresh pork sales were affected by a […] Read more
U.S. to export pork to Argentina after 26 years
Reading Time: 2 minutes Washington/Chicago | Reuters — U.S. pork exporters will soon be free to ship meat to Argentina for the first time in 26 years after the two countries thrashed out an agreement to overturn an Argentinian import ban. The deal is a sliver of good news for U.S. farmers facing trade tariffs and disruption to exports […] Read more
U.S. livestock: CME lean hogs jump on short-covering
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — Chicago Mercantile Exchange lean hog futures rallied more than three per cent on Monday in a short-covering and bargain-buying rebound from life-of-contract lows posted last week, traders said. Some contracts, including actively-traded June, rose by as much as the daily three-cent limit as a steady slide in prices over the past […] Read more
Pork producers tackle new challenges, opportunities in 2018
Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada — Pork producers in Western Canada are still grappling with old problems even as new opportunities present themselves in the export market, according to presenters at the Manitoba Pork Council’s annual general meeting Thursday in Winnipeg. Canadian pork exports in 2017 totaled 1.29 billion tonnes to a tune of $4 billion. On its […] Read more
Tariffs raise tough questions for pork industry
Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada — Representatives from the two largest pork-exporting states in the U.S. were in Winnipeg Thursday to take in the Manitoba Pork Council’s general meeting. The delegates, who hailed from Iowa and Minnesota, talked about the various challenges facing their industry. In 2017, over a quarter of the U.S. pork industry’s C$6.5 billion market […] Read more
U.S. meat groups fear for market growth with China beef tariff hike
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — China’s proposal on Wednesday for tariffs on U.S. beef confirmed the worst-case scenario for the U.S. cattle industry, trade groups said Wednesday, even as they remained hopeful the dispute could be resolved quickly. China listed U.S. goods from soybeans to beef that could potentially incur a 25 per cent import tariff […] Read more
U.S. March hog herd hits record high
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — The number of hogs on U.S. farms in the December-February quarter was up 3.1 per cent from the same period a year ago, a record high for the quarter, according to Thursday’s U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report. Farmers added extra pigs, encouraged by less-costly feed during that period and the […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
