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Doud laments lack of access to China market

US Chief Agricultural Trade Negotiator Gregg Doud expressed frustration Tuesday at the lack of export access to China. Doud, questioned at a House Agriculture Committee Livestock and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee hearing, said there’s been no U.S. poultry sold to China since a high-path avian influenza outbreak in 2015. Ractopamine issues have adversely affected U.S. pork sales, according to Doud, and after being allowed following a 15-year ban because of BSE, beef sales to China have amounted to “a thimbleful.”

“We can’t sell them pet food, rice, dairy, animal feed, seafood, potatoes, nectarines, blueberries, barley, alfalfa, almond meal, timothy hay,” said Doud, responding to questions from subcommittee members. “We don’t have access.”

Meanwhile, USDA Trade Undersecretary Ted McKinney told the subcommittee there’s been some success at cultivating alternative markets. And although conceding that three Central American countries will never replace the trade volume of China, Mckinney cited last year’s export mission to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

“The sales from that, now validated more than 12 months later, set the all-time high record of an ag trade mission in the history of the Foreign Ag Service,” said McKinney. “I am still in disbelief.”