July 19, 2007

China seeking alternatives to pork as shortage continues

China will seek to control rising pork prices by supplying more poultry, beef and eggs and by tightening corn exports as pork, the staple meat of the country, is expected to be in shortage for a fairly long time., the country's top planning agency said.

The National Development and Reform Commission said a 75-percent jump in pork prices has helped push inflation to a 27-month high and may undermine social stability.

The government may issue quotas to allow more pork and poultry to be imported, Wei Dong, an analyst at brokerage FCStone Group Inc, said in Beijing.

However, imports would tend to be more time-consuming as issues of quality would need to be resolved first, he said. 

As China's pork consumption is at about four million tonnes of pork a month, the quantity of imports would have to be huge to make any impact, said Guo Huiyong, livestock analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant Ltd.

To ease the pork shortage, partly caused by rising grain prices, China has been cutting back on the development of the corn processing industry and is converting its corn based biofuel plants to use cassava and sweet potato.