China

Pork prices in China fall 18% y-o-y

Pork

However, meat imports are expected to hit a record high by the end of the year.

Posted on Nov 12 ,07:07

China's pig meat prices are declining fast this autumn compared with the same period last year, as the country is steadily rebuilding its herd. Live pig prices have been decreasing over the past 12 weeks. The current average live pig price is 29.82 yuan/kg ($4.50), which is 23.0% lower than that in the same period last year. The average price of pork in China is 47.66 yuan/kg ($7.20), down 18.6% year on year. By end of October, 361.86 million pigs were put on the market, down 11.7% year on year; and the pork output was 25.74 million tonnes, down 10.8%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Consumption will grow by 2 million tonnes

China imported 5.96 million tonnes of meat from January to August, exceeding 5.06 million tonnes imported in the whole of last year of which pork accounted for the largest proportion. The share of pork imports rose, while the proportion such as beef declined. The country's meat imports are expected to hit a record high by the end of the year.
The current meat consumption level in China stands at 41.5 kg per person, with pork accounting for the largest share, especially in the urban areas. In fact, the per capita pork consumption of rural households in China is less than 70% of urban households. According to the current consumption level of the urban population, it is estimated that pork consumption may increase by about 635,000 tonnes as a result of 100 million people migrating from the rural areas to the cities by the end of the year.
The total population of China will reach 1.43 billion by end of 2020, said an estimate from the National Health and Family Planning Commission. Based upon a population growth of 60 million people and the current consumption level, the newly added population will increase pork consumption by about 2.26 million tonnes. Nevertheless, some of those volumes may be covered from domestic production. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) reported that by the end of September, China's pig inventory had reached 370 million, returning to 84% of that at the end of 2017. The inventory of breeding sows reached 38.22 million, returning to 86% at the end of 2017.
MARA announced that 12,500 new pig farms were put into production in the first three quarters of this year, and 13,400 empty pig farms were back into production. By the end of September, China's pig inventory had reached 370 million, returning to 84% of that at the end of 2017. The inventory of breeding sows reached 38.22 million, returning to 86% at the end of 2017.
It has been reported that there are 2.6 million producers in China with 355,000 pig production-related enterprises. Of those, 71% have registered capital less than 1 million each, which indicates most pig farms are small and medium-sized enterprises.

New trends in pig farming

Rebuilding the national pig herd comes with new strategies and trends observed in pig farming sector.
"China recently announced the Plan for National Economic and Social Development and its long-term goals. Swine production is included in the national security strategy. Those larger and more established companies are expected to receive the most government support and play a vital role in organizing production involving family farms.
Today the family farm is a new concept in Chinese industry competing with backyard small farmers. Backyard farms produce for self-sufficiency, while family farms are commercially driven farming businesses owned and operated by family members within a larger production system.

Another trend that seems to be growing in popularity are multilevel pig barns. Those enterprises building these have included Muyuan, Wens, New Hope, Tianzow, Lihua and other pig production giants. The tallest is to be 26 floors with the advantage of requiring less land to build, but more expensive to construct. It remains to be seem how popular these will become, but the popular trend cannot be ignored in China,", informs Lyle L. Jones, Director of Sales China, Genesus Inc., in his latest market report.

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