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U.S. meat, trade officials detail cost of ‘non-science-based’ ractopamine bans
Story Date: 3/6/2013
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Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 3/5/13
U.S. meat and trade officials are pressing Russia, China and Taiwan to change their stances against the use of beta agonists such as ractopamine in beef and pork while detailing the costs of their respective restrictions.
The U.S. Meat Export Federation on Monday issued a release outlining the costs and difficulties to the U.S. beef and pork industries presented by recent ractopamine bans by leading export markets Russia and China. USMEF’s comments followed a trade report (go to edit menu: find: Taiwan) released Friday by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office that called Taiwan out on its position against the leanness enhancing feed additive ahead of bilateral talks with that country.
Bans on beta agonist residues in pork and beef exports by Russia and China will add costs to U.S. packers and producers who, respectively, would have to segregate meat from animals fed beta agonists from those that have not been fed the drugs and incur the cost of foregoing their use. (The use of beta agonists alone adds up to $5 per head to producer profitability, USMEF notes.) Nonetheless, U.S. companies have sufficient financial incentive to play by these markets’ rules and several are working on ractopamine-free programs in order to do so, USMEF says.
Russia and China
While Russia only accounts for some 7 percent of U.S. beef exports and 4 percent of U.S. pork exports, its buyers pay a premium for their desired products over other foreign and domestic customers, USMEF notes. Without Russian purchases of such products, they will be sold at lower prices and the added supply will depress prices on the U.S. livestock market. USMEF estimates then that the impact of losing the Russian market would be about $800 million, or roughly $15 per head of cattle and $4 per head of pork.
China, which remains closed to U.S. beef, also recently notified USDA of its intention to implement a zero-tolerance policy for ractopamine residues in U.S. pork. In 2012, China purchased nearly 16 percent of all U.S. exports by volume, accounting for more than $704 million of U.S product, or $4.75 per head for variety meat and $7 per head when muscle cuts are included. As does Russia, China pays a premium for offal products undervalued by other markets; the country takes in up to 50 percent of the entire U.S. production of certain offals and byproducts.
Taiwan
In its report, USTR expresses concerns over Taiwan’s “shortcomings in meeting its bilateral obligations and additional concerns about whether certain of Taiwan’s sanitary and phytosanitary measures are based on science have made it impossible to hold a high-level meeting of the TIFA Council on Trade and Investment.”
Last fall Taiwan established a maximum residue level (MRL) for ractopamine use in beef, but full implementation to other beef products and pork “will be critical to reenergizing the bilateral trade relationship. The United States will engage Taiwan closely in 2013 to seek resolution of these and other high-priority policy concerns.”
The European Union also has ractopamine-related import restrictions in place, and other markets’ lack of domestic regulations on beta agonist use and residues make for an uncertain trade environment.
Dilemma
U.S. packers and producers are caught between the advances in efficiency afforded by such technology — and the science that supports it — and meeting the demands of important foreign customers in an increasingly complicated global market.
“Russia’s ban on residues of beta agonists in imported meat brings into clear focus the dilemma that arises when our support for science-based trade and meeting the demands of our customers collide with a foreign country’s non-science-based import requirements,” USMEF says.
While industry and trade officials try to hold foreign governments to science, the industry works on ways to comply with their regulations.
“Some of these decisions could require compromises that none of us like, but increasingly we are learning that this is an inevitable consequence of participating in a growing, lucrative and complicated global market,” USMEF said.
For more stories, go to http://www.meatingplace.com/.
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