While the U.S. poultry industry has gained opportunities to increase exports to other countries, certain shipping disruptions are present challenges to overcome, said Greg Tyler, chief operating officer of the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council.
Tyler spoke during the poultry session of the Kansas Ag Summit on August 12. He shared some of the bright spots and the challenges the U.S. poultry industry has experienced in recent months.
“Despite the challenges we have faced this past year with the pandemic, we have had very positive growth in exports. What we found this year with the foodservice industry shutting down globally, a lot of our production was shifted over to the retail side, and so we saw growth to major markets around the world,” said Tyler.
There have been fewer trade barriers to date in 2021, Tyler said, and China’s 2019 lifting of a ban on U.S. poultry that lasted nearly five years has helped the industry greatly. He also noted that as other nations struggle with African swine fever (ASF), people in those countries are eating less pork and more chicken.
While those are positives for the U.S. poultry industry, Tyler said shipping disruptions are hampering that trade potential. One of those has to do with the supply of shipping containers.
“There is no container shortage out there, but the containers are in the wrong locations, and containers are being returned to Asia empty, instead of waiting for goods,” he said. “And a lot of our exporters are facing very high ocean carrier rates.”
Tyler also mentioned that many of the ports in the world are backed up.
“They need to extend the hours so that we can get the products in and out of the markets,” said Tyler.
Other coverage from the Kansas Ag Summit
Read content produced from the soybean, sorghum and pet food sessions at the Kansas Ag Summit by following these links:
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USGC: China will eventually want US sorghum for feed