How China’s pork crisis put the squeeze on struggling family pig farms
- African swine fever and subsequent pork price volatility have accelerated a structural transformation in China’s hog farming industry
- Small retail farmers, the backbone of the industry for centuries, are slowly losing market share to larger agricultural corporations
In mid June, pig farmer Liang Rixiang made the painful decision to downsize the hog farm she had been expanding for the past decade, selling four of her 10 breeding sows, two of them with babies.
“No matter how you raise the pigs, you lose money,” said the farmer in her 60s. “You lose money if you feed the hogs and sell them to slaughterhouses. You also lose money if you feed the sows and sell the piglets.”
Across China, hundreds of thousands of small, family-operated pig farms are struggling like Liang. While the nation’s pork supply has largely recovered from the worst of African swine fever in 2018-19, the outbreak and subsequent pressure on prices has accelerated a structural transformation in the industry, with only large farms able to tolerate falling profits and mitigate ongoing risks.
In general, the whole industry is gradually switching into the direction of large-scale production and specialisation
“In general, the whole industry is gradually switching into the direction of large-scale production and specialisation,” said Pan Chenjun, a senior analyst focusing on agriculture at Rabobank.
