MILAN (Reuters) – Italy’s tax police seized and destroyed 9.5 tonnes of pork from China which was banned by the Health Ministry after African swine fever broke out in the Asian country, police in the northeastern city of Padoa said on Wednesday.

The illegally-imported pig meat was hidden under a shipment of vegetables from China in a storage facility near Padoa managed by a Chinese citizen.

The load of pork was destroyed and the man was charged with smuggling, trade in harmful foodstuffs and spreading of animal diseases, police added.

China said on Wednesday it found African swine fever virus in 5% of slaughterhouse samples.

A range of import restrictions affecting New Zealand beef exporters to China will be swept away for their American competitors as part of the new “phase one” US-China trade deal signed in Washington DC on Wednesday.

However, US producers will continue to face tariffs on beef as high as 47 per cent while New Zealand beef exports enter the Chinese market duty-free under the free trade agreement in place since 2008, according to initial analysis of the deal by the Meat Industry Association. Details were still emerging, but newly appointed MIA chief executive Sirma Karapeeva told BusinessDesk there was no suggestion “that I can see” that New Zealand lost its tariff advantage over US exporters to China.

“But on the [administrative side] it looks like they are streamlining systems and leapfrogging where countries like New Zealand are at.”

Of particular significance is China’s decision to allow American beef containing some level of hormone growth promotants to be imported, reversing the current ban.

“Given the widespread use of HGPs in US beef production, this development has the potential to significantly increase US beef exports to China,” said Karapeeva. However, full detail has yet to emerge, including a start date for the new US-China pact, whose wider effect has been to calm global trade and financial markets, which had become highly focused on the simmering trade war between the two major powers.

 

Pattrick Smellie

China has lifted a ban on deboned beef from Japanese cows under 30 months old, the General Administration of Customs said in a notice, ending an almost two-decade long restriction on beef imports from the country.

The decision comes as China faces severe meat shortages after an outbreak of the African swine fever disease decimated the country’s massive pig herd, sending pork prices to record levels.

African swine fever (ASF) is endemic in China. Nonetheless, many forecasts expect Chinese pork production to be on the way to recovery by the middle of the coming decade.

As part of the EU medium-term outlook, the European Commission has produced two scenarios for China’s ASF recovery – one slower, and one faster. The scenarios assume there is no usable vaccine available before 2021.

 

A refrigerated container with 50 beef carcasses has been stolen in County Armagh.

The 40ft container was taken from premises in the Red Lion Road area of Loughgall at 01:00 GMT on Friday.

The unit was recovered by Gardaí in Dundalk, County Louth.

PSNI Insp Leslie Badger said a “significant amount” of the beef had been removed from the container, which he described as “distinctive”. Police have appealed for information.

 

 

Chinese authorities have called for a revival of pork production, state media outlet Xinhua reported on Saturday, after a disease outbreak that decimated the national pig herd.

At an agricultural conference in Beijing, attended by President Xi Jinping, officials said it was necessary to accelerate pig production by implementing favourable policies, the agency reported.

Officials also called for the stabilization of grain output, according to Xinhua.

 

h Horwitz, Luoyan Liu

Farmers who mounted a blockade of a major distribution centre for Aldi supermarkets in a protest at falling beef prices say it is the first of many such protests.

The farmers who are members of the Irish Farmers’ Association drove a tractor and trailer across the entrance to the facility in Naas, Co Kildare at 7am on Thursday.

The distribution centre is one of only two in the Republic and serves Aldi outlets in half of the country including Dublin. However the German retailer said its shops remained open.

 

Patrick Logue, Vivienne Clarke

Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua said the country must resolutely work to achieve the target of recovering pig production numbers, and stabilize pork supply for the upcoming holidays, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

China must ensure stable pork supply in key periods of early 2020, including the Lunar New Year holidays in January and during the annual National People’s Congress in March, Xinhua cited Hu as saying at a meeting on animal husbandry on Saturday.

Millions of pigs have died or been culled due to the African swine fever outbreak in China and other Asian countries such as Vietnam. The disease has slashed China’s pig herd by as much as half since August 2018, U.S. agribusiness firm Archer Daniels Midland Co said in November.

 

Lusha Zhang & Se Young Lee

Meat is crucial for feeding the planet, leading scientists have said, as they warned it is not more environmentally-friendly to go vegan.

Experts from the University of Edinburgh and Scotland’s Rural College said farmers were increasingly feeling demonised by the unsupported ‘meat is evil’ claims being promoted by environmental lobbyists.

Speaking at a panel in central London, they argued that meat was critical for the physical and mental health of children, particularly in developing countries, and said that moving away from livestock farming would not improve land use.

 

Sarah Knapton

Mutton is making a comeback because it has lost its “cheap and tough” image, farmers and butchers have said.

Now, environmentally-conscious people are choosing to buy the older sheep meat, as butchers say lamb, mutton and hogget should be treated with as much reverence as beef.

Just as there are different breeds and cuts of beef, there are many types of lamb, and tastes lost since the Victorian times are coming back onto our tables as farmers start a heritage sheep project.

 

Helena Horton