South Korea to track pork origins

South Korean officials report that they will roll out a tracking system designed for domestic pork produced and sold on the local market. The plan is to have it implemented by 2014.

According to the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), the point is to build a system to make it easier to recall substandard products. According to a ministry official, South Korea will start tracking pork, "to improve consumer rights and strengthen the competitiveness of local pork producers vis-a-vis imports.” Once the system is in place, the country’s consumers will be able to check quickly where a pig was raised, slaughtered and how its meat was packaged and distributed before reaching store shelves.

Implementing a tracking system became a higher priority after South Korea encountered it’s latest foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. That incident forced the government to cull more than 3.47 million livestock, the bulk of which were pigs. It’s estimated that 30 percent of the country’s swine herd was culled as a result. In fact the impact is severe enough that questions linger as to whether the country will rebuild its swine herd.

Meanwhile, pork is the top consumed meat in South Korea, and suppliers this winter and spring had to look to export markets to fill their needs. U.S. pork had faced limited access until this spring when South Korean officials lifted import quotas to bring more pork in to meet demand. Of course, future sales could increase dramatically if the U.S. Congress finally passes the stalled free-trade agreement. It’s estimated that South Korea could claim 5 percent of the pork produced annually in the United States.

A working tracking system might have allowed authorities to better control the spread of the disease, estimated to have cost Seoul more than 3 trillion won ($2.8 billion), officials says.

MAFF is developing the program details with related agencies and livestock groups. “Because pigs are usually slaughtered in a relatively short period of time compared to cattle, the tracking system may be harder to maintain," a MAFF official notes. South Korea implemented a system to track cattle a year ago.