After almost completely removing the growth-promoting drug ractopamine from its pigs, Canada is outpacing the U.S. in pork sales to China, where the drug is banned. Canada has only beat out the U.S. in pork sales a handful of times in the last 20 years, says Reuters.
“Chinese authorities banned the use of ractopamine in livestock in 2002,” says the wire service. While the FDA maintains the drug is safe, the Chinese government says “meat raised with the drug can cause nausea and diarrhea in people and be life-threatening to sufferers of heart disease.” China is the world’s largest consumer of pork, eating half of the global supply each year.
Unlike their American peers, Canadian farmers have largely removed ractopamine — a growth-promoting drug — from their animals, mostly so they can sell to China. To date there has been less of a push to prohibit ractopamine in the U.S. because domestic sales were so strong and farmers argued that the drug cut down on how much feed they had to use. Still, with an eye toward the Chinese market, the world’s three largest pork companies — Smithfield Foods, Seaboard Foods, and Triumph Foods, a hog-farmer cooperative — are pushing their American operations to quit the drug.
“In the first quarter of this year, Canada shipped nearly 93,000 tonnes of pork to China, on pace to hit 372,000 tonnes annually,” says Reuters. “That eclipsed the 87,500 tonnes that the United States shipped, according to data from both governments.”