Page 199 of articles about meat

Surging pork and beef costs will keep pressure on U.S. food inflation, which the Department of Agriculture says will rise 3 percent to 4 percent this year, the most since 2008.

Exports of U.S. pork in February reached 172,022 metric tons valued at $434.4 million. For the first two months of 2011, those totals are 337,160 metric tons valued at $831.3 million, increases of 11 percent in volume and 17 percent in value. Mexico, Japan, the Hong Kong/China region, South Korea and Canada remain the top five export markets.

Canada has a long history of pork exports. The industry is served by a mature and committed export infrastructure, which includes trading houses, transportation and many other service components. Pork is a major Canadian agri-food export. Export markets account for over 50% of the Canadian hog production, which totaled 28,2 million hogs in 2008.

Personnel of the Hong Kong Department of Environment and Food Safety visited Mexico with the objective of continuing the negotiations to open the Hong King market to the exportation of poultry, pork and beef, as well as sheep and horse meat.

Last week a meeting between MARM and Spanish swine sector representatives was held in order to analyze the evolution of production, costs, and foreign commerce.

European pork deadweight prices are up 6% in February 2011 against February 2010 according to Eurostat.

The data presented at the last meeting of the EU Commission’s Management Committee put EU pork exportations during the months of January and February of 2011 at 444.138 tons, which indicates a 29,6% increase compared with the same period last year.

According to the latest figures published by Chinese authorities, China produced a total of 14,5 million tons of pork during the first trimester of this year, which indicates an increase of 1,7% compared to the same period last year.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is amending the Federal meat and poultry products inspection regulations to establish a new voluntary cooperative program under which State-inspected establishments with 25 or fewer employees will be eligible to ship meat and poultry products in interstate commerce.

Food labels should include mandatory nutritional information, inter alia on artificial trans fats and the country of provenance, said Environment Committee MEPs on Tuesday.

Pork production in India is limited, representing only 7% of the country’s animal protein sources. Production is concentrated mainly in the northeastern corner of the country and consists primarily of backyard and informal sector producers.

Throughout the month of March, Brazilian pork exportations decreased by 11,60% with respect to the same month last year, going from 50,111 tons to 44,299 tons. In terms of value, the decrease was 1.70%, going from 119.50 million dollars in March 2010 to 117.47 million in March of this year.

Throughout 2010 the number of pigs slaughtered in commercial slaughterhouses reached 5,577,579 animals, which represents a slight increase of approximately 0.7% with respect to the year before, during which a total of de 5,537,389 animals were slaughtered.

Cambodia is threatened by a shortage of pork as pig farmers are leaving the business due to high input cost.

A commercial pig farm was opened at Veiwawa in Navua by the Acting Prime Minister and Minister for Primary Industries, Joketani Cokanasiga. In his opening speech, Mr. Cokanasiga said that pig production in rural areas is wide spread and offer great opportunity as an income generation activity, enhance food security and contribute towards poverty alleviation.