"Where do all the pig parts go?" was among the topics discussed in March during the 2019 London Swine Conference.

Michael Young, the Vice-President Technical Services and Marketing Programs with Canada Pork International, notes that of all the markets to which Canada sells pork, China is now number two in terms of volume.

"Right now, we export to...about 87 countries in total but the top ten markets account for about 94 percent of that volume and about 97 percent of the value, so that's fairly significant," says Young, speaking to Farmscape's Bruce Cochrane.

"Our top market by volume has always been the USA and our second largest market by volume is now China.

"China, again, is going through some challenges right now with African swine fever so they will be relying heavily on their import pork partners for supply. Canada is one of those suppliers so we are looking for our volume to grow in China.

"Other good news for us is that we've started pilot projects with some Chinese end-user customers for chilled pork which is quite exciting for our industry. We've always done well in the frozen sector but this opens up a new category of trade for us which we think will build over time. We'll be working with our Chinese end-user partners to fully optimise that opportunity for Canada."

Young notes the year before last was a record year for Canadian pork exports world wide, and last year was Canada's second highest year in terms volume, over 1.2 million tonnes, valued at just over 3.8 billion dollars. He says that represents about a 15 percent increase in the past 10 years.