Foreign Media: China's hog prices drop to an 8-year low, industrialized farming leads to oversupply
China's hog prices continue to fall, with the average price in the third week of March reaching 11.05 yuan per kilogram (approximately $1.6), a 2.9% decline from the previous week and a 28% drop compared to the same period last year, marking the lowest level since June 2018. Pork prices have also declined, falling to 22 yuan per kilogram last week, down 2.1% from the previous week and 16.5% lower than last year.
The root cause of the oversupply lies in the rapid expansion of large-scale industrialized pig farms in recent years. After the African swine fever outbreak led to the exit of numerous small farmers, large-scale breeding enterprises seized the opportunity to expand rapidly. Some companies even built super-sized pig farms as high as 26 stories with annual capacities exceeding one million heads, causing hog supply growth to far outpace market demand. Former chief economist of the National Bureau of Statistics, Yao Jingyuan, pointed out that industrialized farming not only disrupts market supply-demand balance but also affects pork quality, which consumers are increasingly unwilling to accept.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1861103290688715/
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