Quantification of soy-based feed ingredient entry to the United States by ocean freight shipping and the associated seaports

The potential of feed ingredients to serve as vehicles for African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) introduction to the US is a significant concern. ASFV DNA has been detected in the Chinese feed system; raw grains and meals drying on the ground and milling facilities and feed delivery vehicles. Experimental evidence of ASFV survival in multiple soy-based feed ingredients during a simulated 30-day transoceanic journey and the transmission of ASFV through the natural consumption of contaminated feed has been published. Therefore, it’s important to understand the quantity of soy-based ingredients that enter the US from ASFV-positive countries via ocean shipping and rank sea ports of Entry (POEs) according to annual volume of these products to manage this risk. The quantity of soy-based feed ingredients and their specific ports of entry was obtained at the International Trade Commission Harmonized Tariff Schedule website ( www.hs.usitc.gov ), a publically available website that provides a transaction of specific trade commodities between the US and its international trading partners. A close review of this database identified 10 HTS codes pertaining to soy-based feed ingredients, including soybeans, soybean meal, soy oil cake and soy oil. Specific queries on these 10 HTS codes were designed to provide information on country of origin, quantity of product, date of entry, and POE into the US. Data were exported into Microsoft Excel, then organized into pivot tables that described the quantity of specific product by country of origin and POE. The analysis focused on the 43 ASFV-positive countries on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Watch List. In 2018, 104,707 metric tons (MT) of soy-based ingredients were imported to the US from a total of nine foreign countries that are included on the CFIA Watch List. 52.6 % of this volume that was imported, or 55,101 MT, originated from China. These soy-based products from China entered the US from a total of 13 separate ports of entry (POEs). Of these POEs, a total of 4 POEs received greater than 88% of all of soy-based ingredients originating from CHina, including San Francisco/Oakland, CA (60.36%), Seattle, WA (20.54%), Baltimore, MD (4.13%), and Los Angeles, CA (3.78%). This is a new approach to analyze the risk management of feed imports, focusing on seaport of highest risk and quantity of product received. This work represents an initial step towards building a comprehensive listing of imported products introduced into the pork supply chain, and provide a roadmap to understanding risks involved in global livestock feed ingredient sourcing.