China bans imports of ruminant products

The ban is a response to the bluetongue outbreaks in the Netherlands. Other countries sometimes no longer allow imports of live animals due to bluetongue outbreaks, but China's import ban appears to go further than that and includes meat under the current definition. The Central Organization for the Meat Sector (COV) has announced that it is still reluctant to say anything about the impact, because it is still unclear to the organization which products are and are not covered by the ban. Initially, all ruminant products seemed to be included, but this has now been weakened with several exceptions. COV has now submitted questions to the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality to further clarify the ban. Export ban on veal before According to the first communicated version of the ban, this would also include hides and skins. That would have had a major impact, the COV says, but these appear to be exempt from the ban in an update on Tuesday, October 24. The organization says ...