Brazil’s pork exports increase with 28.4% despite pandemic

Pork exporters all over Brazil earned around US$ 650.3 million in the 1st 4 months, spread out over all types of products. That number is even 53.5% higher than registered for the same period of 2019, when it was US$ 423.6 million.

ASF crisis in Asia is positive for Brazil’s pork exports

Ricardo Santin, executive director of the Brazilian Association of Animal Protein (ABPA), explained, “The ASF crisis, which started in China in 2018, continues to positively influence sales to Asia, where the greatest increases in exports were registered.”

When looking at only April 2020, Brazil exported 72,800 tonnes, which is 19% higher than the total shipped in the same period of 2019 with 61,100 tonnes. That led to 31.9% more income (US$ 165.2 million in April, against US$ 125.2 million a year before).

Overview of Brazil’s pig and poultry production

Mid-May, ABPA released the Brazilian Animal Protein Report 2020, which presents a complete overview about pig and poultry production. In addition, it also contains the association’s point of view related to sustainability, animal welfare and food security.

According to the document, the country produced 3.983 million tonnes in 2019 – a new annual record, slightly higher than the previous record of 2018 (0.2% higher of 3.974 million tonnes).

Brazil keeps fourth position in terms of pork production

Those numbers meant that in 2019 Brazil kept its global fourth position in terms pork production, behind China (42.550 million tonnes), US (12.542 million tonnes) and the EU-28 (23.935 million tonnes). Russia comes 5th at 3.321 million tonnes.

Brazil is also the fourth main pork exporter with 750,000 tonnes, behind the EU-28 (3.551 million tonnes), US (2.867 million tonnes) and Canada (1.284 million tonnes). In total in 2019, the sector produced 81% for domestic consumers and shipped 19% abroad. The consumption per capita decreased a little from 15.9kg to 15.3kg.

Read more about pork production in Brazil

Over the whole of 2019, Brazilian pig producers earned US$1.597 billion, which was a 31.8% year-on-year increase as in 2018 the Brazilian industry earned US$1.211 billion. Asia bought 64.8%; the Americas 18.51% and Africa 7.83% of the total.

Main pork producing states in Brazil

Main producing states were Santa Catarina (29.59%), Paraná (19.85%) and Rio Grande do Sul (19.26%). All of them are part of south region, which contains around 68% of Brazilian pork production.