South Korea bans import of pork to Germany after foot-and-mouth disease outbreak

South Korea’s agriculture ministry has banned all pork imports from Germany after a recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in a buffalo herd in the eastern German state of Brandenburg. .

The ministry announced in a statement Saturday evening that the ban would come into effect immediately.

Additionally, tests for the foot-and-mouth disease virus will be carried out on all German pork products delivered to South Korea since Dec. 27, he added. Around 360 tonnes of German pork are currently subject to quarantine testing.

The outbreak, confirmed on Friday in the town of Hönow, near Berlin, led to the slaughter of pigs and other hoofed animals nearby as a precaution.

Foot and mouth disease is a highly contagious viral disease in hoofed animals such as cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. Many zoo and wild animals can also be infected with the disease.

Although the disease poses no danger to humans, it can have a devastating impact on livestock and poses a major economic threat to farmers.

This is the first known case of foot and mouth disease in Germany since 1988 and the first ever case in the state of Brandenburg. The country and the European Union as a whole have been considered foot-and-mouth disease free in recent years.

The Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI), Germany’s federal center for animal diseases, identified the specific variant of the pathogen, enabling the production of an effective vaccine within days.

South Korea is traditionally considered a key sales market for German pork in Asia. In 2019, the country imported around 106,000 tonnes of pork from Germany before imports were halted the following year until spring 2023 due to an outbreak of African swine fever.

Since then, pork sales to South Korea have only slowly recovered.

According to the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food, Germany sold a total of around 2.3 million tonnes of pork abroad last year.

The majority of meat exports go to European countries. Italy is the largest buyer of pork, ahead of Poland and the Netherlands.