Farm-Scape, Episode 2020

Canada Pork International reports global exports of Canadian pork set another record in 2005, fueled in part by increased sales to Japan.

Figures released for the first ten months of 2005 by Canada Pork International indicate Canadian pork exports increased by ten per cent.

Assistant Executive Director Martin Lavoie says, for the first time, Canadian pork will top the one million tonne export mark reaching a value of about 2.8 billion dollars.

"We've seen around a 20 percent reduction of our exports to the US but that has been compensated by a very large increase of our exports to Japan.

Our exports to the US were 976 million dollars after 10 months versus 874 million dollars for exports to Japan so really these are the two key markets for Canadian pork.

After that Australia is still a major market despite all the uncertainty on that market this year following potential closure of the market for Canadian pork exports.

Korea was also a huge market for Canadian pork. In 2005 we may be close to reaching the 100 million dollar mark."

Lavoie says Romania was another significant market and is expected to account for about 50 million dollars worth of product but, he points out, that market will be lost when Romania makes the transition to European Union import requirements at the end of June.

While he is hopeful a new equivalency agreement with the EU will help offset part of that loss, he doubts it will fully compensate.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.