China pig herd recovery will take five years, report predicts
8th Nov 2019 / By Alistair Driver
China’s pig herd will not recover from the devastaion caused by African swine fever (ASF) until 2025, according to Rabobank.
When China’ first case of ASF was reported in August 2018, its pig herd stood at over 430m, accounting for half the world’s pigs. Such has been the scale of the devastation that it now stands at under 200m pigs.
But Rabobank analysts are forecasting a much longer road to recovery, given the scale of the devastation so far.
The focus next year and in 2021 will be on small-scale restocking and large-scale importing before hog production increases in the years to 2025, when the market should rebalance and prices stabilise, they predict. However, even then the total herd is unlikely to return to the 2018 peak, analysts predict.
For more on this story, see Pig World