August 1, 2011

China has called on local authorities to build a mechanism that could guard against hog price volatility and promote stable hog production for healthy and sustainable development of the industry.

According the announcement by the General Office of the State Council, the country will continue to support hog production including shoring up large-scale hog farms, improving subsidy system and extending more support for large producing regions.

It said that the central government will continue to invest RMB2.5 billion (US$388 million) in constructing standardised hog farms per year during the 2011-15 period and will timely increase the investments if necessary.

Meanwhile, China will reinforce the system to prevent and control epidemic diseases of live hogs. Farmers will be eligible for RMB800 (US$124) in compensation for every hog they raise that dies from disease or other external factors.

The announcement also proposed to strengthen credit and insurance's support on hog production.

It also called for building and improving the market regulation mechanism, and intensifying supervision on the hog market, suggesting that the central and local governments should increase pork reserves and in the meantime support some backbone enterprises to build commercial reserves as the supplementary resources for the government to regulate the market.