The overall pork price index in 16-provincial-level regions has retreated for two straight weeks since November as revealed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
Consequent to China’s efforts to boost production and supply through various multiple channels, pork prices in the country have gradually stabilized. Average pork prices from November 11 to 15 has gone close to 10% down on a weekly basis.
Such occurrence was generally attributed to an increased willingness and proactivity among farmers and scale breeding farms to sell hogs alongside the release of frozen pork products in the market.
Meanwhile the African Swine fever has caused price surge over the past few months. While it has restrained consumption and demand, it also helped further price hikes from taking place. It is now considered one of the largest shake-out ever in the pork chain and holds a new era in Chinese meat production and consumption.
The disease-induced hog crisis has wiped out a huge section of China’s pork production and led to an unprecedented shortage in the world’s biggest pork market. It entered China in August 2018 and hundreds of millions of hogs died from the disease or were killed to prevent the spread of virus.
The number of live pigs in China dropped 39 per cent in the 12 months ending in August 2019 after a full year of infections, according to China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
China’s main gauge of inflation, its consumer price index rose to almost 4% last month caused by soaring pork prices, contributing nearly 67% of the CPI growth.
The government’s extensive initiative to take on multi-pronged measures to boost supply include increasing subsidies that will restore hog production, releasing pork reserves and expanding pork imports.
In the first three quarters of 2019, China has imported 1.3 million tons of pork, signifying almost a 44% increase from last year. Imports began to soar in April as the virus has spread out and its severity became clearer. Germany, Spain and Canada are filling the gap that China lacks as of the moment.
China has recently decided to offer subsidies from the central budget to large pig farms to support the facilities construction of epidemic prevention and automatic feed plants.100 countries with breeding stocks of more than 100,000 pigs will also be selected by China in 2020 to push waste utilization.
A total of 50 billion yuan of credit will be allocated by the Agricultural Development Bank of China in the next three years to support hog production.
