China's import of pork is projected to double to 2 million tons in 2019 after the outbreaks of the African swine fever hits the country since last year.
China is the world's top market for pork. The nation reported outbreaks of the contagious swine disease since last year. The Chinese government struggled to control the spread of the disease all over the country. China implemented bans in the import and export of swine meat in the country.
There were a total of 113 cases of outbreaks of the disease since August 2018 aside from other unreported cases. The African swine fever is contagious and fatal to pigs and it is rumored to originate from wild hogs. There were no reports of vaccines or cure for the fatal disease. Hundreds of pigs were killed and buried because of the deadly disease. Aside from the African swine fever, there are reports also of a different swine fever outbreaks in the nation.
Oscar Tjakra, the director of food and agribusiness research at Rabobank said during a conference in the east of the country that China's pork production will fall by 20 percent in 2019. The country owns half of the world's output of the meat.
He added that the decrease in pork production in China means that the local production this year is between 50 million and 51 million tonnes. The recent production of China is from 54 million to 55 million tonnes.
The forecast of the United States agriculture department said that China's pork production will fall to 51.4 million tonnes this year which is a 5 percent decrease in output compared to last year. The nation's import is projected at 2 million tonnes. According to Tjakra, the herd of the country drops by 15 percent in 2018.
Zhu Zengyong, associate professor at the Agricultural Information Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) said that pork production increased in the first three quarters of 2018 but declined significantly in the fourth quarter after the disease began spreading rapidly.
The data from the statistics bureau showed that the number of slaughtered hogs dropped by 1.2 percent in 2018 to 693.8 million heads. Last year, the pork output in China is 54 million tonnes. Zhu also said that the disease has totally disrupted the production plans of many major companies with some halting expansion because of the disease. According to analysts, the drop in China's output would hit feed demand hard.
