By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

DES MOINES, Iowa — The fallout from consumer media’s misidentification of the H1N1 influenza strain – which had caused one death and sickened 141 in the U.S. as of press time – as “swine flu” has adversely affected the nation’s pork industry, according to analysts and industry representatives.

“The early and extensive reporting of this terrible disease as swine flu, even though international health organizations were saying there has been no proven connection between this virus and pigs, did some damage,” stated Chris Novak, chief executive officer of the National Pork Board (NPB), on May 1.

“It has been devastating for our producers who have seen hog prices fall each day this week.”

Pork industry officials were hesitant to attempt to estimate the financial damage the virus’ misidentification could end up inflicting on pork producers, shippers and retailers worldwide.

“As you can imagine, we are still trying to understand that question as this situation unfolds,” the NPB’s assistant vice president of communications, Cindy Cunningham, told Farm World. “With all of the federal and state agencies and many of the international agencies using the H1N1 name, we are hopeful it will take the pork industry out of the equation in what appears to be a human health issue.”

The NPB joined forces with the USDA April 29 to urge consumer media sources to resist referring to the virus as swine flu, as no swine in the U.S. has been affected.

“This really isn’t swine flu,” said Tom Vilsack, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. “It’s H1N1 virus. That’s very, very important.

And it is significant, because there are a lot of hardworking families whose livelihood depends on us conveying this message of safety.”
“What we call this flu is important,” Novak added. “Calling this swine flu has the potential to cause confusion. There simply is no reason for anyone to be concerned about the safety of eating pork.”

The Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health, which manages the fight against animal diseases globally, issued a statement in agreement with NPB and USDA’s assertion the virus had been misnamed. “The virus has not been isolated in animals to date,” the statement read, in part. “Therefore, it is not justified to name this disease swine influenza.”

U.S. pork exports take beating

Chris Hurt, a Purdue University agricultural economist, indicated in an article posted on the Purdue website that it could take weeks or longer before U.S. pork producers recover from export restrictions tied to the H1N1 outbreak.

With China, Russia and Ukraine refusing to accept pork from U.S. states and other nations increasing their screening of pork imports, hundreds of millions of pounds of pork could wind up in the U.S. retail market at discounted prices, Hurt reported. That could lead to lower prices for a pork industry already reeling in a tough economic climate. 

“This couldn’t get much worse for the pork industry,” Hurt said. “You’ve got other countries starting to follow the lead of Russia and China by limiting their import of our pork. Then there are the consumers worldwide who are linking the word ‘swine’ to pork, even though this influenza strain did not come from swine. And then there’s the world economy in general.”

Russia and China represented around 27.4 percent of all U.S. exports last year.

Hurt said that May lean hog futures fell eight percent from April 24 to April 28, providing a snapshot of what the near future could bring to the pork industry.

“This is, in essence, the market anticipation of what this flu event means over the next few months,” Hurt continued. “The concerns are that ‘swine flu’ could reduce pork exports, that U.S. consumers could reduce pork consumption and, more broadly, that the flu could cause a slowing of world economic growth, which would reduce demand for food products in general.”

Tim Maiers, communications director for the Illinois Pork Producers Association, said the drop in market prices from April 24 through April 28 was a result of the “hysteria and misidentification” of H1N1.
“We’re looking at a loss of close to $11 per head,” said Maiers. “It couldn’t have come at a worse time, just as we were starting to see a little recovery in prices. The biggest concern and most disheartening thing about it is that there is nothing related to swine about it. It’s not in the U.S. swine herd and there’s been no proof of any kind that this flu came from contact with swine. Producers are getting hammered, adding to the financial loss they’ve had the last 19 months. Fear and uncertainty have the markets all worked up.”

Hurt said the pork industry had been losing money since the fall of 2007, and the fallout associated with the H1N1 virus could assure they remain in the red.

“Producers are near break-even right now. We had hoped that producers would return to profitability by May, but that isn’t likely to happen now,” Hurt predicted, explaining that hog farmers were beset by sharply rising prices in late 2007 and 2008 and the global financial crisis last year.