China barred pork imports from six U.S. processing plants and six cold storage facilities as part of its ban on the feed additive ractopamine, which helps hogs gain weight more rapidly, said Reuters. The plants include units of Tyson Foods and Hormel Foods. China is the world’s largest pork producer and consumer. Ractopamine is a longstanding issue in U.S.-China trade.
While China is the largest market for U.S. farm exports, “the real battleground for the emerging U.S.-China rivalry is in South America’s commodity-exporting countries,” writes Tom Levitt, managing editor of ChinaDialogue.net. In a story at Civil Eats, Levitt says China has a growing appetite for imported meat as well as for the grain and soybeans to feed its own hog herds. “Last year China jumped ahead of the European Union as the largest purchaser of both soy and other agricultural commodities from Brazil–a key player.”