This year, India could produce around 28 million metric tonnes (MMT) of poultry feed, 16MMT of cattle feed and 3.5MMT of aquafeed. With most raw materials needed for animal feed produced in India, the country may now face shortages as the animal husbandry sector is growing faster than crop production. The availability of quality feed ingredients and their prices are major challenges for producing compound feeds.

Zhongxin Breeding was set up in 1998 by Wen's Group and has been focusing on pig breeding and reproduction for 23 years. In 2021, Zhongxin Breeding became independent from its parent organisation, accumulating over 20 years of breeding and research experience and leading the industry in terms of scale and technological development. As for SciGene, its sales of breeding pigs in 2022 reached 220,000, out of which 70 were exported. The company has two genetic core farms in Chizhou, Anhui and Guigang, Guangxi, with a total of 4,500 core breeders.

Since May 2023, China's major stock market indexes have plummeted relentlessly, with the Shanghai Composite Index falling from 3418.95 on May 9 last year to 2867.71 as of January 11 this year. The pork sector index earlier saw a rebound in the index last March, peaking at 2668.75 on April 4, 2023 - then falling, followed by a rebounding in October. The rally lost momentum at 2312.25 on December 7 and slid to around 2,127 as of mid-January 2024. The movement of pig prices since October 2023 does not, however, appear to reflect sentiments behind rallying pork sector stocks.

In the past five years since China confirmed its first case of African swine fever in August 2018, its pig prices have fluctuated tremendously. For instance, in 2022, the price of live pigs dropped from ¥16.61/kg at the start of the year to a multi-year low of nearly ¥12/kg in March. It then rebounded in April to ¥28/kg in October before plunging ¥17.01/kg by the end of the year. From 2019 to 2021 following the ASF outbreak, China's pig price movements followed a three-year cycle; prices rose from low to high - fluctuating at high levels prior to retreating to low levels.

Pig farming contributes to the diversification of agriculture in Kerala, India, with the demand for pork steadily rising in the state. Apart from fresh pork, there is also a growing market for value-added pork products like sausages, bacon and ham. Entrepreneurs in Kerala can explore these opportunities to diversify their product offerings and cater to a broader consumer base all over India. Kerala's pig population has shot up by 86.19% over a seven-year period. This population increased from 55,782 animals in 2012 to 1,03,863 in 2019.

China's Guizhou Kang Sheng Da Food has 12 intelligent layer farms with more than 700,000 laying hens altogether. In 2022, the company installed a big data platform for complete digital intelligent management and standardised operations. The so-called '5G+ layer industry digitalisation' system modernises egg production at Guizhou's farms. With the system, all layer pens adopted a fully enclosed, 'negative pressure' ventilation and 'zero antibiotics' breeding model.

As of July 2023, there were 68 egg producers in China with inventories of one million or more laying hens. The combined laying population of these large producers totalled more than 200 million birds, accounting for about 20% of the country's layer inventory. Among them, five companies have layer inventories of more than 10 million birds; six companies have inventories of 5-10 million birds.

For the past nearly 40 years, China imported all of its white-feather broiler breeders. However, in 2012, Beijing WOD Cheng-Long, with the help of its subsidiary, Yukou Poultry, conducted research in the field of white feather broiler breeders. The company successfully bred four new species of the WOD series. In addition to WOD, Guangdong Xingguang Nongmu and Fujian Sunner have also produced their breeds of white feather broiler.

Last year, China released 11.86 billion broiler chickens and produced a total of 18.876 million tonnes of chicken meat, accounting for 20% of total meat production in the country. As of September 2023, the country exported chicken products to 55 countries or regions, but the total export volume is limited. The total export volume in the first three quarters of 2023 was 392,500 tonnes.

Based on the latest statistics from India's Animal Husbandry Ministry, the country's total egg production was 138.38 billion during the 2022-23 period. The top five egg-producing Indian states are Andhra Pradesh (20.13%), Tamil Nadu (15.58%), Telangana (12.77%), Bengal (9.93%) and Karnataka (6.51%) — they together contribute around 65% to the national total egg output. India's total egg production from commercial poultry is 118.16 billion (85.40%) while backyard poultry makes up 20.20 billion (14.60%).

NetEase Weiyang ventured into pig farming following a February 2009 announcement by its founder Ding Lei. The Chinese internet portal company shunned the traditional pig farming model, aiming instead to build an intelligent, highly efficient farm. As such, the company can be considered as a pioneer of artificial intelligence-driven pig farming in China.

Nineteen listed pig companies in China sold a total of 73.78 million pigs in the first half of 2023, of which Muyuan ranked first with 30.265 million pigs released, semi-annual performance reports revealed. Overall, 17 of them incurred losses. In total, the three biggest hog producers suffered a combined loss of ¥10.451 billion (US$1.4 billion) in H1 2023.

China's total number of core pig breeding farms increased by 12 in 2022, a 12% increase, according to government evaluation results which tallied 104 core breeding farms and eight boar breeding farms from 27 provinces and municipalities. As of August 2023, the inventory of conceivable sows in the farms increased from 150,000 head to more than 190,000 head. In 2021, China imported 27,900 breeding pigs, which are capable of producing one million parent-stock pigs.

TAVSAN is Turkey's biggest and oldest poultry equipment developer. The company's products entails systems for feeding, drinking, lighting, heating, ventilation, feed storage and transport, automatic nest, layer and rearing cage and climate control. It has also begun to deliver turnkey poultry projects both in the Turkish and international markets, Remzi Çelik, chief marketing officer of TAVSAN, tells eFeedLink.

Pork is not a preferred meat in India and it sees better demand only in northeast India and metro cities. The country's total estimated population of pigs is 10.29 million. The number of exotic/crossbred pigs is 2.46 million while indigenous pigs amount to 7.84 million. Northeast India has around 3.34 million, or 32.45% of India's total pig population. Three types of pig production systems are common in the region.

Inner Mongolia Youran Animal Husbandry, the world's biggest raw milk producer, is highly integrated with a business that extends to feed production, calf production and breeding, and dairy cattle farming. The only company in China that covers the entire upstream dairy industry chain, Youran has 78 self-operated farms in 16 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, and raises nearly 500,000 dairy cows. The main factor behind Youran's success is the high automation of its farms.

In 2022, the total output of ruminant feed in China was 15.62 million tonnes, a 7.56% increase over 2021. The output of complete ruminant feed, concentrated feed and premix feed increased without exception. Ruminant feed mainly comprises dairy cattle feed, beef cattle feed and mutton goat/sheep feed, which accounted for 41%, 30%, and 23% of ruminant feed output, respectively, last year.

China's dairy farming industry has transformed tremendously, with small-scale and backyard farms banned following the 2008 Chinese milk scandal. More than a decade of industrialisation later, the country's dairy cow inventory recovered to 6.3 million head last year. Meanwhile, data shows that the proportion of large-scale farms with more than 100 heads of cows reached 72% in 2022 (compared with 19.5% in 2008 and 45% in 2014).

The decline in Vietnam's live pig prices have caused livestock enterprises to record less positive business results in the third quarter of 2023 as well as in the first nine months of the year. After increasing sharply to VND64,000-65,000/kg in early July, the price of live pigs had decreased to VND54,000-55,000/kg by the end of the third quarter of 2023. By the end of October, the price of live pigs continued to go down in some localities where it was only VND47,000-50,000/kg.

In 2022, China's yield per dairy cow reached 9.2 tonnes, twice that of 2008. The yield per dairy cow on large-scale Chinese farms even exceeded the average level of the European Union. How was this achieved?

India's Animal Husbandry, Fishery and Dairying Ministry estimated that the country's dairy sector is likely to grow at 7% in the current fiscal year (against over 6% in 2022-23). Additionally, the Indian government is promoting the production of milk through several programmes like artificial insemination, in vitro fertilisation, sex-sorted semen technology and vaccination. While milk prices have risen, there is no shortage of milk and milk products. The government attempts to deal with high prices by increasing milk production.

eFeedLink statistics show that China's aquafeed production in the first half of 2023 was over 9.25 million tonnes. Compared with aquafeed production in H1 2022, output in the same period this year was more than 9.96 million tonnes, a nearly 10% drop. In H1 2023, several aqua farmers failed to pay feed producers for purchases made in 2022 due to poor market performance. This contributed to lower aquafeed production in the period. Only about 1,460 aquafeed producers were in operation, a significant decline from H1 2022.

In early July this year, the pre-sale reference price of Peruvian CNF fishmeal for the new season was US$2150/tonne, and the price of Peruvian super-grade fishmeal in China was in the range of ¥18,400-18,500/tonne (US$2,571-2,585), 40-50% higher than the same period in 2022. The reason behind the rallying fishmeal prices was Peru’s delay in announcing its fishing plan for 2023. Meanwhile, the supply of Peruvian fishmeal in the Chinese market gets tighter every day. From June to September, China's aquaculture production will enter its peak, potentially exacerbating the supply shortage as the demand for fishmeal soars.

China's southern region, which is most suitable for shrimp farming, is the most economically developed region in the country. However, it has limited land resources for farming and the water quality there is questionable. Equipment at shrimp farms in the region is outdated, leading to more disease outbreaks Hence, the consensus is that farming South America white shrimp farming would be difficult. In recent years, several local shrimp farms have ventured to apply precision farming technology and green development models, as well as unmanned operation and smart farming.

On average, 58.3% of Chinese consumers spend ¥51-200 (US$7.12-27.91) on each purchase of aqua food products, with a copious amount of freshwater fish getting consumed. In 2021, the total output of aquaculture-based fish in China was 28.25 million tonnes, of which 26.4028 million tonnes were freshwater fish, accounting for 93.5% of the total output. Meanwhile, as the proportion of seawater-based food products in aquaculture production increased steadily, consumer demand also boosted the import of aquatic food products, particularly South American white shrimp.

Lower shrimp prices, high product cost challenges and seed quality issues are the major challenges for India's shrimp production in the first half of 2023. According to sources, a nearly 40% reduction in shrimp production was expected in the first half. In major shrimp production areas like Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, various climatic factors influenced the shrimp production cycle. Declining demand from the United States and the competition from Ecuador further worsened the market opportunities for Indian shrimp.

China's poultry layer industry is partially reliant on imports. However, local breeder layer companies control 70% of the Chinese breeder layer market, while the market shares of imported breeds dropped to 30%. In fact, local breeder producers have the production capacity to produce twice the quantity of China's demand for grandparent layer breeders. China's yellow feather broiler breeders are 100% domestically produced, while the white feather broiler industry depends significantly on imports for breeders.

Adisseo has recently launched Mycopedia, a reference book for industry professionals seeking accurate, practical information on mycotoxins in feed, Ricardo Communod, APAC regional marketing manager and category lead for feed integrity at Adisseo Asia Pacific, tells eFeedLink. With the guide, Adisseo "strongly" positions itself "with a one-stop solution" addressing mycotoxin challenges, he adds.

Can the US produce enough soybeans to realise bountiful economic gains for the next crop season? This answer hinges on "weather-driven" markets for soybean and corn which "have rapidly fluctuated since early May amid weather concerns," S&P Global stated in a June 30 report. "Both soybean and corn crops in the US for MY 2023-24 have been under dryness stress for the better part of May and June, leading to a notable decline in crop conditions, especially in the eastern Corn Belt," the report added.

China's poultry egg production increased by 1.4% year-on-year in 2022, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics. The egg output of Henan, Shandong and Hebei last year was 4.562 million tonnes, 4.381 million tonnes and 3.984 million tonnes, respectively. These provinces, as China's largest egg producers, account for 13.20%, 12.68% and 11.53%, respectively, of the national egg production. Together with Liaoning, Jiangsu and Hubei, they accounted for about 59.32% of China's egg production.