This one has been a long time coming, and it looks like a win win for everyone, at least so far. While it still needs ratification, Canada negotiated a free trade agreement with South Korea, and that is a big market.
Over time, the FTA with South Korea will virtually eliminate tariffs on Canadian pork entering that market and level the playing field for Canadian exporters.
Karl Kynoch, chair of Manitoba Pork Council says, for a province like Manitoba that depends on exports, having access to as many markets as possible is critical.
“In fact we export about 85 per cent of the product that we produce and with having Maple Leaf’s state of the art plant here and also the Hylife plant in Neepawa we have a lot of pork product that needs a market,” said Kynoch. “A lot of times in these Asian countries we will be exporting other products of the pig that we do not use here in Manitoba. We do have all the parts go to the different Asian countries but one thing that the Asian countries do use is some of what we call the offal and that could be intestines, stomachs, feet, noses, heads.”
He says having markets for each product that comes out of a pig just simply increases the value of the pig the packers can receive for it after they cut it all up into parts and send it different directions. Everything goes, except the squeal. As long as the packers can get value for every part of the pig then hopefully that will turn into more dollars coming back to the producer.
Kynoch applauds the federal government for its efforts in reaching two key free trade agreements, first with the European Union and now with South Korea.
He’s confident this deal will help the Canadian pork industry regain lost market share in South Korea and hopefully even increase that share.
Sask Pork chair Florian Possberg is confident, once ratified, the agreement will immediately strengthen the position of the Canadian pork industry in that market. The value of Canadian pork exports to South Korea peaked in 2011 at almost a quarter of a billion dollars but with free trade agreements with key competitors like the U.S. and the EU, Canada’s share of that market declined.
Possberg says the key is South Korea is a high value purchaser of pork internationally.
“The Americans did an assessment and they think the South Korean market alone adds ten dollars per pig to the value of their production so that’s the kind of numbers we’re looking at for improvement in our Canadian competitiveness, too,” he said. “Once the agreement is ratified and, since it’s thought that it should happen fairly quickly, we will still have a bit of a tariff disadvantage to the Americans by about six to eight per cent but, of course, with our Canadian dollar being advantageous to the U.S. dollar, we will probably see more exports go to South Korea right away.”
However, the agreement calls for all tariffs to disappear over five to 13 years, putting Canada on par with any other competitor.
Possberg says Saskatchewan exports 80 per cent of the pork it produces so having a premium market like South Korea being a realistic destination will increase the value of that pork, too.
Rick Bergmann, the V-C of the Canadian Pork Council says because of the lack of a free trade agreement with South Korea, Canadian pork producers and processors saw a steady loss of market share to key competitors, most notably the United States, the European Union and Chile, which already have free trade agreements in place with South Korea.
Bergmann says deals like this don’t just happen.
“We’ve seen in the past and we see again strong commitments by the federal government in cultivating relationships and building deals that enhance agriculture, particularly pork production in Canada,” he said.

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— By Harry Siemens