Minnesota Farmers Union

(May 7, 2010) - Usually, reports from meetings of a group of country leaders don't attract our attention all that much, but articles written after a recent meeting of leaders from a handful of developing countries made us sit up and take notice. The event was a joint meeting of two overlapping groups of developing countries: BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and IBSA (India, Brazil, and South Africa) or as some have dubbed the combination BRICs.

These nations represent 42 percent of the world's population, 32 percent of the world's arable land mass, and 22 percent of the global GDP. They have been important in leading the global recovery following the recent economic crisis. They also see themselves as growing faster in the future than the US, the European Union, and Japan. And they want to use their new-found economic clout.

(February 19, 2010) - To us there is a disconnect between agricultural export expectations in this country-particularly with regard to meats-and the stated intentions and market actions of China and Russia, which are the very countries being touted as US agriculture's export saviors. US producers are caught in the cross-hairs, hoping that those touting exports are correct and fearing that the rosy projections will once again come to naught.

Heather Thorstensen of AgriNews-Minnesota reports that at the recent Minnesota Pork Congress meeting, Nick Giordano, National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) vice president and counsel for international affairs, "told attendees there is no greater money-making opportunity for US pork than China. 'Everything pales in comparison to China.' He said, calling it the 'mother load.'"

Pork exports to China sky-rocketed in 2008 as the Chinese prepared to feed the influx of foreign visitors attending the 2008 summer Olympics at the very time China's domestic pork production plummeted due to disease outbreaks and weather-related death losses.

Despite the ban on U.S pork imports over the H1N1 controversy imposed in 2009 and continued drug-related issues, U.S. short-term optimism apparently presumes elimination of the ban and return to the glory export days of 2008.