“We are glad Russia is looking to open its market to US exporters,” Dave Warner, director of communications for the National Pork Producers Council, told globalmeatnews.com: “Hopefully we’ll start shipping pork to Russia again.”
This follows comments from Sergey Dankvert, head of Russia’s Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor), who said: “Lifting the ban on pork exports from the US may take place after consideration of a number of documents that the US has promised to provide in mid-February. The examination of these materials is expected to end in late February to early March 2014, after which a final decision will be taken,” in a statement sent to globalmeatnews.com.
Russia has banned imports of most North American meat products since February 2013, because of concerns over the use of the feed additive, ractopamine. However, Warner noted Codex Alimentarius, the global standard-setting body on food safety, had found ractopamine was safe within a certain maximum residue limit. “It [the ban on ractopamine-fed meat] is a non-scientific barrier to trade. It is not a food safety issue,” he argued. If this were true, the way would be clear for a World Trade Organisation (WTO) case against the ban, as such health-based trade restrictions must be based on solid science. “Under WTO rules, refusing to accept a product because it was produced with something – in this case, ractopamine – that has been approved as safe by Codex would be a non-tariff barrier to trade,” said Warner.
This may now be irrelevant, however. In 2012, prior to the ban, the US exported about 98,830 metric tonnes of pork to Russia and this figure is down by 78% since the ban was implemented, according to Jim Herlihy, vice-president of communications for the US Meat Export Federation.
The small amount of sales came from January 2013, before the ban, and some smaller markets that allowed US pork (such as Ukraine), but which are counted with Russia in US export statistics. “The fact that they are looking at re-opening is an encouraging sign,” added Herlihy.