September 17, 2020
 

 

Helped by efforts to prevent and control African swine fever (ASF), and stimulus from the government and market, new swine farms are being built and stocks are being replenished at a rapid pace; the recovery in swine production is progressing better than analysts expected. Since the start of the year, more than 9,000 new farms have been placed into production, more than 11,200 large-scale farms which were vacated last year have resumed production, and smallholders have also been replenishing inventory.

And with the release of swine stocks, prices haven fallen from RMB40 per kilogram to below RMB36. However, there have been no significant changes in the retail price of pork, indicating that slaughterhouses may be reluctant to take in new inventory with the intention to further suppress prices at the farm gate. That said, with the approach of the Mid-Autumn Festival and China's National Day, it is expected that both live swine and pork prices would rebound.

ASF is both a threat to swine production and a driver of swine prices; resuming production along with eliminating diseased herds has become the norm. Before the implementation of an ASF vaccine, along with increasing production, there remain many variables to how the epidemic situation will progress.

On August 18, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced that development of the ASF vaccine by the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences was progressing smoothly and would soon enter expanded clinical trials and production trials.

With the opening of live poultry markets and the elimination of blockages to sales channels, current supplies of chicken meat and eggs are ample. Entering autumn, although stock replenishment would typically peak, prices of day-old broiler chicks continue to hover at a low level.

Currently, layer production is in transition.With egg supplies in the northern and southern parts of China being unbalanced, along with the recovery in demand, inter-regional transport of eggs has significantly increased. These come along with traders actively building stocks as the weather cools and a seasonal consumption peak arrives. It is expected that egg prices would fluctuate in the short term, and with increasing supplies, prices would likely increase.

Similar trends are observed for the broiler market. But with hurdles to poultry imports every now and then, coupled with the accumulated release of broiler stocks, more disruptions to prices are seen.

Seasonal characteristics of poultry diseases are observed in autumn, such as mosquito-related diseases like fowl pox and leucocytozoonosis. Against the backdrop of an antibiotic-free environment, there are a plethora of preventive and treatment solutions on the market, including traditional Chinese medicine, probiotics and enzymes, but they add to production costs and their effectiveness vary. In fact, elimination of diseases at their sources, disinfection and quarantine, and adequate nutrition are the essentials. Coupled with appropriate vaccine use and improvements in the housing environment, achieving antibiotic-free production is basically possible.

On August 24, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued a notice on the further cracking down of the illegal development, production and operations of ASF vaccines, and set up the identification and testing of vaccines.

On September 11, the Ministry together with the General Administration of Customs issued a notice on the prevention of the introduction of ASF into China from Germany, which prohibits the direct and indirect entry of swine (including wild hogs) and their products into the country.