Pang Cong is a pig farmer in Nanning City, Guangxi Province, China. Currently he is raising a herd of “massive” pigs, with children weighing up to 500 kg, the equivalent of an adult male polar bear.
When sold to the slaughterhouse, a pig can bring him Pang 10,000 yuan (about 1,400 USD), which is more than three times the average available income in Nanning.
China is the world's number one consumer of pork. Although in many localities, the herd does not have a “super big size” like Pang's, there are more and more people who believe that pigs need to be grown as big as possible to solve the shortage of pork.
In Jilin Province in Northeast China, the rising price of pork has stimulated farmers to raise pigs that weigh up to 175 – 200 kg – the equivalent of a mature and significantly higher female polar bear. compared to the usual 125 kg.
Zhao Hailin, a pig farmer in the area, said the farmers here wanted to raise the pigs “as big as possible”.
Follow Bloomberg, not only small farmers but also large Chinese pork trading corporations are following this trend such as Wens Foodstuffs Group Co., Cofco Meat Holdings Ltd. and Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co. These companies all say they are trying to lift the average weight of their pigs.
Exchange with BloombergLin Guofa, senior analyst at consulting firm Bric Agriculture Group, says large farms are focusing on increasing their pig weight by at least 14%.
Also according to Mr. Lin, the weight of pigs in some large farms has reached 140 kg instead of 110 kg as usual. Doing so could increase profits by more than 30%, he said.
The practice of raising pigs to a huge extent is done by China in the context of the African swine fever epidemic causing serious meat shortage. According to some estimates, this disease has halved the total number of Chinese pigs.
Rising pork prices have forced the Chinese government to encourage people to increase pig production to meet consumption and curb inflation.
Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Ho Xuan Hoa warned the meat supply until the first half of 2020 will be “extremely in need”. This year, China will lack about 10 million tons of pork, the volume is too large to meet through imports. Therefore, the nation of billions of people is forced to increase domestic production capacity.
Follow Bloomberg, During a visit to major pig-raising provinces including Shandong, Hebei and Ha Nam, Deputy Prime Minister Ho Xuan Hoa urged local authorities to re-pig herds as soon as possible, with the goal of bringing meat production to Pigs return to normal levels this year.
Despite this, many farmers are still hesitant to re-grow due to having suffered too much damage in the previous cholera outbreak. Not to mention, the cost of buying piglets and breeding also increased, making it difficult for farmers and small farms to rebuild their pigs.
Therefore, increasing the size of the current herd is probably the best solution for China at the moment.
