Methods
The exercise focused primarily on the years 2018 and 2019, but also
evaluated data from 2015 to 2019. Information on the type and quantity
of soy-based feed ingredients and their specific POE was obtained at the
International Trade Commission Harmonized Tariff Schedule website
(www.hs.usitc.gov), a publicly available website that provides a
transaction of specific trade commodities between the US and its
international trading partners. In the website database, each trade
commodity was identified by a specific 10-digit code known as the
Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS), which was used for determining tariff
classifications for all goods imported into the United States. Each
commodity was classified based on the product’s name, use, and the
material type, resulting in over 17,000 unique classification code
numbers. Importing countries selected for inclusion in the analysis were
obtained from the 43 ASFV-positive countries listed on the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency (CFIA) ASFV Watch List (Appendix A). These countries,
spread across Asia, Africa, and Europe, have been determined high-risk
areas for potential ASFV contamination of feed (Barr 2019). Specific
queries on eight specific HTS codes pertaining to soy-based feed
ingredients and the 43 countries were designed on the USITC website to
create a comprehensive analysis which provided information on country of
origin, quantity of product, year of entry, and POE into the US for each
HTS code. Data were exported into Microsoft Excel and filtered into
pivot tables to answer a series of questions:
- What are the types of soy-based products that enter the US
from the 43 ASFV-positive countries?
- Across the 43 ASFV-positive countries, where do most of the
soy-based products come from?
- What POE receive these high-risk imports?
- Do POE for soy-based products change over time?