Poultry farmers could register $1 billion a year in sales to China now that Beijing has removed its “unwarranted ban on U.S. poultry and poultry products,” said U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer on Thursday. Farm groups said sales could be twice as large — $2 billion — because China’s loss of tens of millions of hogs in an epidemic of African swine fever has led to a meat shortage.
China banned U.S. poultry imports in 2015 during a U.S. outbreak of virulent “bird flu.” Poultry groups said the United States has been free of highly pathogenic avian influenza since 2017, but China has been unwilling to change its regulations. In a joint statement, chicken and turkey industry groups said that as a result of “China’s meat protein deficit,” they saw a potential market of $1 billion a year for “chicken paws” and an additional $1 billion for leg and breast meat, along with $100 million for turkey meat.
Because of African swine fever, pork production in China could fall by 20 percent this year — a decline so large that it would lead to the first drop in world meat production in two decades, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. China, with the world’s largest hog herd, usually produces half the world’s pork.
The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture applauded the trade opening and said, “We hope that President Trump and President Xi can come to an agreement that addresses the full range of tariff and non-tariff barriers on U.S. agriculture and food products.”