QCA Farmers weigh in on China pork order cancellation

Yahoo

26-04-2025

China announced that they are cancelling an order of 12,000 metric tons of U.S. pork, amid conflicts over tariffs. Our Quad Cities News spoke with two area farmers about the impact of the cancellation on hog farms.
Chris Hansen farms in Iowa and says things have been rough in the industry lately.
'It's been a real challenge the last few years, because profits haven't been really consistent or very high. It's better this year, mainly due to more disease pressure this past winter, and so there's less hogs, and prices should be a little better this summer. So it's been a it's been a good year so far this year, as far as margins.'A common hog virus last fall and winter affected the number of pigs that were sold to market, he said. 'This year, the numbers are a little bit lower than last year, so the prices should be better, but export markets may not be as good as last year. So that's one of our big challenges.'
He says the biggest concern for farmers right now is market access to export countries. 'I think it's about 25% (of pork) is exported. So, it's a really big problem if we don't have exports. It's a little concerning, because forward commitment of sales for exports right now are kind of low right now, compared to last year.'
China is the world's largest producer of pork, but they don't import chops and bacon. 'Well, China buys mostly byproducts, so Mexico, Japan, Korea, those are some of our best markets. It's concerning with the trade war, if Mexico would retaliate. They could retaliate against pork, and that would be that'd be bad for us.' The byproducts sold to China are called 'offal', which are the edible internal parts of an animal, such as the heart, liver and kidneys. These ingredients are important to several cuisines worldwide; the most well known is haggis from Scotland.Hansen says farmers are dealing with more than just lost markets. 'It takes a lot of capital to have a hog farm, and if you want to do any expansion, we have inflation now on building products which has been going on for the last three or four years. I suppose it's accelerating now with these tariffs, you know, because these (farm) buildings are made from concrete, lumber, steel.'
One problem with importing meat or any other product is the chance it could be contaminated with diseases, he said. 'One thing I'm really worried about is making sure we have that beagle patrol at the ports of entry so they can sniff out African swine fever. If people bring in pork products from other countries, there's a risk of bringing the African swine fever into the country. I hope there's no budget cuts on things like the beagle patrol. It's not here yet, but if we ever got it in this country, it'd be devastating. It would rock our markets, probably worse than the pandemic did. African swine fever kills pigs and there's no cure, there's no vaccine for it.'
Heather Poppy, co-owner of Poppy Farms in Lynn Center, Ill., said she's also concerned about the cancellation.
'China canceled one of the shipments that was scheduled of pork, and so I think it's pretty indicative of our relationship with China as a trading partner,' she said. 'We've been in a trade war with them. We were with them several years ago, and it's continued now. Just this year, it's picked up again, an escalation of tariffs, and it's now gone to cancellation of an order of pork. And this might be just the beginning of it. I hope it's not, but it may continue after this.''It's not a one to one relationship (between the U.S. and China). Anytime you see an order like this get canceled, it doesn't correlate one to one. So, when you see a cancelation, it affects us exponentially, and really the continued uncertainty is what really concerns us the most. Markets might end up in the green at the end of today, but down the road, who knows what will happen?
'Illinois is number four in pork production, so we raise a lot of pork, and we're proud of that,' she said. 'We're fully committed to raising pork, not only domestically but globally. What we really want is fair trade, and we want to make a living doing it. We want fair prices. We want to be able to sell our product, not only within the United States but globally, whether that's to China, whether that's Mexico Canada, we want to be able to sell it.''Mexico is our number one trade partner. They take the largest amount of U.S. pork, and so they're very important to us, and it's important that we maintain that relationship we have with them. Just last year, the value of pork exports from United States to Mexico was just over $2.5 billion. That is a lot of money. I would say about 30% of all pork that is produced in the in the United States is exported and quite a bit of it goes to Mexico.'
Poppy has traveled to the nation's capitol to share her concerns with the administration. 'I was just in Washington, DC and met with our Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins. She reassured us that she is working diligently to open up new markets for trade, not just for pork, but for other commodities. I have great faith that she will open up those avenues so we can get our pork sold in other countries.'
The stock market instability is also affecting farmers, she said. 'If you watch the markets, you'll see it go up and down. We definitely saw it happen several years ago when we had tariffs hit us. It just makes us fight for free trade even more. All we want as farmers, whether you're a hog farmer or a grain farmer, you just want to be able to produce your product and sell it on the open market.'
Poppy has a suggestion for anyone who wants to help out. 'Well, you know, if everyone would just buy a little bit more bacon and pork chops, that would really make me happy.'
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