Farm-Scape, Episode 2067

Canada Pork International reports exports of Canadian pork products topped one million tonnes last year setting new records in terms of both volume and value.

Figures released late last week show exports of Canadian pork reached one million 29 thousand tonnes during 2005 valued at 2.84 billion dollars Canadian.

That represents an increase of about 10 percent in terms of quantity and an increase of about five percent increase in terms of value over 2004.

Canada Pork International executive director Jacques Pomerleau says there were some interesting shifts in terms of where that product went last year.

"The major destinations, first, the United States remained the number one customer for Canadian Pork but there was a decrease of about 10 percent compared to the previous year.

Japan jumped by over 30 percent to 265 thousand tonnes over 2004 and that was in both value and volume.

Other markets of significance, Australia remained our third largest market in value with 125 million dollars followed by Korea where our exports more than doubled over one year.

Korea now accounts for 60 thousand tonnes and 100 million dollars and it's now, in terms of value, ahead of Mexico which is quite a surprise.

Then after that we find China-Hong Kong which accounts for 53 thousand tonnes and sales of over 65 million dollars."

Pomerleau says preliminary figures indicate that 2006 will see stable exports, more or less about the same as what we saw during 2005.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.