The ban will impact many farmers in the European Union. This disease outbreak following the publicity on BSE will surely affect animal agriculture and the consuming public for years to come in Europe. But, this impact is only a drop in the bucket if the world community does not get a handle on the disease. Table 1 shows the dollar value of total beef, swine and sheep imports into the United States by country of origin for 2000. It is interesting to note the geographic distribution of meat imports into the United States.
European shipments are primarily pork.
Imports from Australia and New Zealand are beef and lamb while imports from the other Americas are primarily beef. Canadian shipments are primarily beef and pork. The other Western European countries of Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Gibraltar and Malta are not part of the ban. Eastern European countries including Czechoslovakia, Hungary Poland, the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Romania and Bulgaria are also not affected by the ban. The major exporters of mutton, lamb and goat meat to the U.S. are Australia and New Zealand.