Foot-and-mouth disease in Europe has the U.S. pork and beef sectors on edge as any U.S. cases could dent exports and batter farm revenue. In addition, trade barriers in international markets have blunted any short-term export opportunities the outbreak may have held for U.S. producers.
On Thursday, Hungary confirmed its fifth FMD outbreak at a cattle farm near the Slovakian border. Four other farms had confirmed cases, leading to culling more than 4,000 animals.
Hungary's outbreak is the latest in a spate of detections on the continent since the beginning of 2025. Slovakia has confirmed six infection sites since March. Germany had an isolated outbreak in water buffalo in January – its first case since 1988 – but has since regained FMD-free status.
The outbreaks “are really concerning,” Megan Niederwerder, executive director of the Iowa-based Swine Health Information Center, told Agri-Pulse. The affected countries had been FMD-free for decades, she said, and it’s not immediately clear what caused the reintroduction.
“What changed?” Niederwerder asked. “Does the U.S. have that same risk?”
The fast-spreading virus affects cloven hoof animals, causing fever and blisters on the mouth and feet. While the virus doesn’t typically kill the animals and cannot spread to humans, it reduces milk and meat production. Culling to prevent its spread can wreak economic havoc.
“It's very contagious, highly transmissible, and the virus is very stable in the environment,” Niederwerder said – a dangerous combination that allows it to survive on surfaces, like the bottom of a shoe, or in contaminated animal products, and reach new populations. Accordingly, countries move quickly to limit imports from affected regions to limit transmission.
The last time Europe had a major foot-and-mouth outbreak, in 2001, the United Kingdom had to slaughter around 6 million animals to contain it, and U.K. agriculture lost an estimated 20% of its total revenue, according to the U.K. Department for Environment.
The U.S., which has not had an FMD case since 1929, limited imports from the U.K. in 2001 and was able to avoid an outbreak. The episode prompted U.S. policymakers and livestock producers to evaluate biosecurity practices and implement more stringent protocols, Barb Determan, who was then president of the National Pork Producers Council, told Agri-Pulse.
It’s easy to be “in the know” about agriculture news from coast to coast! Sign up for a FREE month of Agri-Pulse news. Simply click here.
“It started the conversation about biosecurity,” Determan said. “We had to quickly look and see what our biosecurity practices were.”
Biosecurity is now entrenched in the vocabulary of U.S. farm country, and disease prevention practices are common. But while defenses have strengthened, risks have also multiplied, as more integrated global supply chains increase opportunities for trans-Atlantic disease transmission.
“Our world is even more connected than it was then with global travel and movement of products,” Niederwerder said.
The stakes for the U.S. are also much higher today than they were in 2001, Determan said. In the early 2000s, the U.S. was transitioning from a net importer of pork in the 1990s, to a net exporter. Exports made up a smaller share of industry profits.
Today, however, exports make up around 30% of U.S. pork producer revenue and any curbs on exports from an FMD outbreak on U.S. soil would incur steep revenue losses.
“If suddenly we couldn't export, we'd be in real trouble,” said Determan, who is now president of Heartland Marketing Group, a communications firm.
Trade opportunities have been blunted by barriers
Countries have moved swiftly to restrict imports from affected countries since the outbreak began. Inspection at land borders caused traffic congestion in Slovakia, and industry groups in Hungary are warning that the country’s 12,000 tons of annual pork exports are in jeopardy.
For the U.S. beef industry, the outbreak offers few trade opportunities for U.S. producers, according to R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard. Countries like Brazil, Australia and New Zealand overproduce for their domestic markets and are better positioned to step in and fill any supply shortfall that may arise, he argued.
But for the U.S. pork sector, the episode highlights the trade barriers they argue their exporters face in international markets.
Germany provides the bulk of the U.K.’s pork, for example. The U.S. could have stepped in to fill the temporary hole left by Germany had it not been for a slew of tariff and nontariff barriers, Erin Borror, vice president for economic analysis at the U.S. Meat Export Federation, said.
The U.K. continued to follow the European Union’s live animal process and plant approval requirements after leaving the EU, banning hormone growth promoters and certain beta-agonists and pathogen reduction treatments permitted in the U.S.
“These obstacles prevented the U.S. from even taking advantage of a short-term opportunity,” Borror said. Germany regained most of its access to the U.K. last month when the U.K. agreed to narrow import restrictions to cover only products originating near the infection site.
Instead, other European and South American countries have likely benefitted from any temporary trade disruption, analysts said.
Maria Zieba (LinkedIn photo)
As with Germany’s recent bout of African swine fever, following the FMD outbreak, German exports bound for international markets were diverted to the internal EU market – in which countries only curb imports from affected areas, not whole countries. With more German products in their domestic market, Spanish producers have been able to turn their attention overseas, Maria Zieba, vice president of government affairs at the NPPC, told Agri-Pulse.
Spain has also positioned itself to expand its pork exports to China, after agreeing on new protocols with Beijing to allow the export of a wider range of products.
In South Korea, for example, Germany was a major provider of single-ribbed bellies. Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, France and Chile are set to fill that gap, Borror said. The U.S. is not a major exporter of single-ribbed bellies, she added, because high domestic demand for bacon keeps prices higher than international competitors.
In the event of a protracted outbreak affecting multiple European countries, Zieba said, ongoing U.S. trade tensions could also limit exporters’ opportunities. The EU provides around half of China’s pork imports, for example. But prohibitively high tariffs on U.S. products and an ongoing trade conflict would prevent U.S. exporters from capturing any new trade opportunities.
“You would see Brazil continuing to take market share in areas like China,” Zieba said, adding, “We have political and economic issues that are that are affecting the ability for many of our meat trade to be exported.”
For more news, go to www.Agri-Pulse.com.
