September 14, 2007

Blue ear disease still a threat in China but pork prices would stablise

Blue-ear pig disease, one of the causes for the current pork shortage in China, still lingers in 14 counties, but pork prices are unlikely to rise sharply for the long term, officials from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture said on Thursday (Sep 13).

Jia Youling, the Agriculture Minister, said China was stepping up measures to bring the epidemic under control.

Since the beginning of 2007, the disease had plagued 286 Chinese counties and infected 280,000 pigs, of which more than 70,000 died. The ministry had so far administered 510 million milliliters of vaccines to immunise more than 200 million pigs, he reported.

The disease has cut the supply of live pigs and triggered pork price hikes. Price hikes of pork and the ensuing hikes of other food products pushed the country's consumer price index to 6.5 percent in August, after it hit a ten-year high of 5.6 percent in July.

Vice Agriculture Minister Yin Chengjie said pork prices are unlikely to increase drastically in the long term as the series of measures to encourage farmers to raise pigs kick in.

Current hog profits stand at RMB300 (US$39.90) to RMB400 (US$53.20) per pig, which would help rekindle the enthusiasm of farmers who suffered losses from raising pigs back in 2006, he added.

Evidence that pork supplies are finally recovering is seen from the fact that China's pork prices have fallen for four consecutive weeks before September 2.