DENVER — Over the past decade, Germany’s pork production has dropped by 25%, yet the country remains a global leader in pork exports, particularly for the rest of the European Union. With Germany reporting a foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) detection in a water buffalo herd at a small exotic farm near Berlin earlier this month, officials with the US Meat Export Federation (USMEF) are considering the implications this finding could have on global pork trade.
The FMD detection was the first in Germany since 1988. Although Germany immediately took steps to isolate the impacted animals and trace their origin, most livestock products cannot be exported outside of the European Union due to the reported disease.
“They moved quickly on that front to set up the surveillance zone,” said Erin Borror, USMEF vice president of economic analysis, describing Germany’s swift biosecurity response to FMD. “With that, they are able to continue trade within the EU-27, and that is critical for survival. But their third-country exports will be heavily limited. Of course, they’re mainly a player on the pork side, but again since foot-and-mouth is across the cloven hoof species, the trade restrictions are actually on beef, pork, sheep meat and livestock products unless they’ve been heat-treated.”
Borror explained that three of the main export markets for German pork present challenges for any market share gains for US pork. Currently, the United Kingdom and Vietnam have significant tariffs on US pork as well as sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) barriers, which pose a problem even if an opening in market share becomes available. As for the third main market — South Korea — the United States already supplies a significant amount of pork to the region, which would be promising to further its trade; however, most Korean imports of German pork are bellies, which are always in strong demand domestically in the United States.
“The US consumer loves bacon,” Borror said, “so that belly price is generally on average higher than the European belly price.”
Germany’s pork production peaked in 2011 near 5.6 million tonnes. At that time, Germany was the European Union’s largest producer. Germany was surpassed by Spain in 2020 following detection of African swine fever, but Germany still accounts for roughly one-fifth of EU pork production. More than 80% of Germany’s pork exports are to other EU member states.