The discovery of another case of African swine fever (ASF) in farm pigs in Germany in a previously disease-free area could make negotiations over the lifting of existing import bans with China and other large-scale buyers more difficult, experts said today.
ASP was confirmed on Monday in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the first case on a farm since July on farm animals.
China and other buyers banned German pork imports in September 2020 after the first ASF case in wildlife was confirmed in eastern Germany along the border with Poland, but German pork sales to Europe continue.
Germany is calling on China to accept a "regionalization concept" that instead of a blanket sales ban from all over the country stops the import of pork only from the region of a country in which ASF was found.
"Talks with China and other Asian importers about the lifting of their import bans for German pork are made more difficult by the case on a farm," says Tim Koch, meat analyst at the German market consultancy AMI."I think I'm talking about years before the Chinese market could be reopened to German pork exports."
"While Germany continues to find ASF, be it on farms or in wildlife, I don't expect China to reopen its market to German pork."
In the eastern federal states of Brandenburg and Saxony, such as the newly infested Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania near the Polish border, 2,703 ASF cases have occurred in wild boars. Wild boars that immigrated from Poland to Germany spread ASF.
"The new case on a farm is a setback for Germany in its efforts to regain access to its pork exports to China and other major importers," said Justin Sherrard, global animal protein strategist at Rabobank's small part of eastern Germany.
"But from the other trade perspective, the case will not change anything. Germany's trading partners in Asia and elsewhere are currently being supplied relatively well by other European exporters," he said, adding that pork importing countries do not need German deliveries.
Source
Hansa Terminhandel GmbH