Seizures of banned meat from China at the Long Beach and Los Angeles seaports are at an all-time high

Long Beach, California – Officials from the Long Beach and Los Angeles seaport complexes announced that they are constantly seizing banned meat products from China. According to their statement, the import of banned meat products is at the highest level in their history.

Agriculture experts confiscated 262,237 pounds of banned chicken, duck, pork, and beef products in the first three months of 2022. This represents a 33% increase over the same period in the previous year.

Seizures began to rise last year, when a total of 786,514 pounds of meat products were confiscated at the Long Beach and Los Angeles seaports. This was an increase of more than 80% over 2020.

“Preventing the introduction of foreign contagious animal diseases and noxious pests at our nation’s largest seaport is paramount and vital to our agriculture industry and the well-being of the communities we serve,” said Carlos C. Martel, Customs and Border Protection director of field operations in Los Angeles.

The U.S. estimated that the American pork industry and the nation’s $6.5 billion in annual pork exports could be destroyed by the import of meat from China, which was affected by several diseases at the time, including African swine fever, virulent newcastle disease, highly pathogenic avian influenza, classical swine fever, foot and mouth disease, and swine vesicular.

Agriculture experts with Customs and Border Protection discovered the majority of the banned animal products were mixed into boxes with e-commerce shipments and domestic items.