Animal diseases, especially bird flu, should cast the only shadow over healthy prospects until 2015 for the world livestock trade where demand will be fuelled by developing countries, a study showed on Tuesday.
Despite warning of negative knock-on effects on the global meat trade from previous disease outbreaks, such as delays in lifting import bans, it forecast higher imports of beef, pigmeat and poultry from developed and developing countries up to 2015.
"These (diseases) are a dampening factor on otherwise generally positive prospects for world meat trade, driven by an expectation of rising per capita incomes in a broad range of importing countries over the outlook period," the study said.
Over the 2006-2015 period, Japan and South Korea were likely to raise imports of high-quality beef to levels seen before the outbreaks of BSE, or mad cow disease, in North America. "At the same time, despite easing regional consumer concerns about BSE and AI (bird flu), pigmeat consumption and imports by these countries are expected to grow as well," it said.
Canada and the United States, whose beef trade was expected to rebuild gradually over the period, would regain market shares they had lost to competition from Australia and New Zealand.
The European Union's position as a net beef exporter would erode due to internal reforms, said the study, co-written by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
In developing countries, South America would dominate exports since its livestock sector continued to be competitive and was attracting more and more investment, the study said.
In the poultry sector, for example, US exporters would face stiff competition from Brazil with its low production costs and competitive world prices.
China, Mexico and Russia would remain the world's largest poultry importers as rising incomes fuel demand even faster than the projected growth of domestic production, the study said.