By Bruce Cochrane.
Canada Pork International expects Argentina to become a key part of Canadian pork exports to South America.
In 2002 the government of Argentina suspended the eligibility of Canadian pork processors to ship product into that market in retaliation for Canadian restrictions on the import Argentine beef.
Last month the President of Argentina and the Prime Minister of Canada agreed to the restoration of access to Argentina for Canadian pork.
Cesar Urias, the Director of Market Access with Canada Pork International, says a few years ago about half of the pork produced in Canada was consumed domestically and about half was exported but now a days 60 to 65 percent of Canadian pork is exported and Argentina will be an important component of Canadian pork exports to South America.
Cesar Urias-Canada Pork International:
Probably Canada right now stands as the fourth largest producer and the third largest exporter of Canadian pork and pork products world wide.
Probably, as we move forward in the short, we'll see more volume of Canadian product vis-a-vis what's being consumed domestically to what's being exported increase.
One of our premises here at CPI was to always expand access for Canadian pork.
We've always had the idea that the more that we diversify the more we have options in terms of serving different needs world wide.
In the case of South America there are very few markets we currently don't have access to.
Argentina was probably the major one where we wanted to achieve this goal.
We see the retention of market access to the Argentinean market as something very essential to actually have a better positioning of our products in South America and compete with other major suppliers of product like Brazil and Chile.
Urias expects the Argentinean market to account for between 2,500 and 4,000 metric tonnes of Canadian pork during the first year, worth 16 million to 30 million dollars, depending on demand.
Source: Farmscape