With China's middle class' growing appetite for imported pork, the US pork producers are pushing for a bigger bite of the share in the market. US pork exports to China are up by 6% for the first nine months of 2015 and "muscle meats" such as ham and pork shoulder, up 22%. China itself is running on a pork deficit, since its pork industry has long comprised of small family farms; these are being replaced with large industrial operations but the transition is still in progress and not keeping up with the amount of meat Chinese consumers demand. The rise of American pork imports into China comes at an awkward time for President Barack Obama, who faces pressure from both domestic political opponents and foreign policy hawks over his decision last year to impose tariffs on Also, much needed good news for the meat industry is the prospect of a price increase: the impending reshuffle of the two main commodity benchmarks, S&P GSCI and BCOM, means the futures contracts for livestock will see $780m worth of buying by fund managers, since both indices have increased the weightings of pigs and cattle.
With China's middle class' growing appetite for imported pork, the US pork producers are pushing for a bigger bite of the share in the market. US pork exports to China are up by 6% for the first nine months of 2015 and "muscle meats" such as ham and pork shoulder, up 22%. China itself is running on a pork deficit, since its pork industry has long comprised of small family farms; these are being replaced with large industrial operations but the transition is still in progress and not keeping up with the amount of meat Chinese consumers demand. This is coupled with domestic food safety issues which has pushed consumers to favour imports instead. Also, much needed good news for the meat industry is the prospect of a price increase: the impending reshuffle of the two main commodity benchmarks, S&P GSCI and BCOM, means the futures contracts for livestock will see $780m worth of buying by fund managers, since both indices have increased the weightings of pigs and cattle.