China’s current hog price liveweight is 16.49 CNY/kg, or US$1.08 liveweight/lb. The USA liveweight price is $0.47/lb and Spain $0.62/lb. It doesn’t take an ag-economist sitting in a university cubicle to figure that Chinese producers are receiving up to $125 per head more than US producers. A reflection of Chinese domestic supply and demand, writes Jim Long, President-CEO Genesus Inc.

• Despite record profits, China Agri reports that in February, China’s sow herd declined further 0.5 per cent from January to 36.3 million. China’s sow herd has declined about 9 million from 45 million in February 2013. Obviously, it’s hard to increase hog numbers if sow herd keeps declining.
  
  
• China imported 181,900 tonnes of pork in February, an increase of 153.8 per cent year on year. We calculate this tonnage is equal to about 2 million market hogs imported for the month. It is obvious China’s supply is far from meeting its current demand level. If and when the hog price declines in China, lower pork prices will increase pork consumption, increasing tonnage demand.
  
  
• In U.S.A., there has been no surplus of slaughter capacity over the last while. Packers have had good margins. Consequently, new packing capacity is under construction. In China, a different story. The consequence of 9 million fewer sows. According to China Agri, there are 5,000 pig abattoirs in China. They still produce carcasses (65 per cent of output), ahead of fresh pork cuts (20 per cent) and processed pork products (15 per cent). They are currently working at 30 per cent capacity. 30 per cent! Even Sheung Shui (Smithfield) with an output of 13 million pigs works at 40 per cent capacity. Average margin for primary processing is 5.5 per cent against 20-30 per cent for large-scale secondary processing. Surprisingly, the percentage of pigs slaughtered in large abattoirs has fallen from 24 per cent to 31 per cent between 2010 and 2016.
  
  
• One of the constraints on China’s swine production is the government’s need to consider its policy package to address concerns of both environment protection and pork supply in terms of land law and subsidies. Currently, many hog farmers are simply forced to shut down or demolished due to the environmental policy. From what we can understand, these factors are part of the reason China sow inventory continues to decline.

When there are good profits in the hog industry, there is always expansion. China will be no different. It’s not if, but when. Profits of around US$100 per head month upon month will lead to more hogs.

In 2016, Genesus was the global leading exporter of swine genetics to China. We continue to see the reality of new sow barns in China in 2017. The interesting factor is up to now liquidation of existing sow herds continuing to outstrip the new construction.