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A strong month for pork exports

The USDA’s latest Monthly Trade Data showed another strong month for pork exports. 

University of Missouri livestock economist Scott Brown says September exports were up 13 percent.  “That’s really driven by what was a nearly 50-million-pound increase in pork exports going to China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan,” he says.  “More than offsetting some weakness in Japan and South Korea.”

He tells Brownfield even though pork exports have increased, it is still a tall order for the pork sector to meet USDA’s export projections for 2019.  “We’re going to have to really see some big movements of pork out of the United States in this last quarter to hit the USDA’s projections of 6.5 billion pounds of pork exported from the United States.”

Pork exports in 2018 totaled 5.9 billion pounds.