The pig stock will return to normal
Our reporter Huang Junyi
The price of pork, which has been soaring for a long time, has fallen for 13 consecutive weeks this year.
On April 26, the average wholesale price of white striped pigs at the Beijing Xinfadi Agricultural Products Wholesale Market was as low as 26 yuan/kg.
Zhu Zengyong, an associate researcher at the Beijing Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said in an interview with the Economic Daily on the 27th: "The national pig stock will return to normal in the second quarter, and the supply of pigs will return to normal in the fourth quarter. The pork supply situation will continue to improve, and the price of pigs will continue to improve. The downward trend remains unchanged."
Monitoring data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs showed that in the third week of January this year, the price of live pigs in 500 bazaars across the country was 36.01 yuan/kg. It began to fall in the fourth week of January, and fell to 23.64 yuan/kg in the third week of April, a drop of 3.5 month-on-month. %, down 30.6% year-on-year.
As of the 4th week of April, the cumulative decline was 34.4%.
The pork price in the national bazaars rose to 54.22 yuan/kg in the third week of January this year, and then fell for 13 consecutive weeks. In the fourth week of April, it was 38.21 yuan/kg, down 1.9% month-on-month, down 27.9% year-on-year, and a cumulative decrease of 29.5%. .
Pig prices continue to fall, Zhu Zengyong believes that the main reason is the significant increase in supply and limited consumption boost.
As the number of live pigs has recovered significantly, from January to March this year, the number of pigs slaughtered by designated slaughter companies nationwide was 33.76 million, a year-on-year increase of 39.1%.
In addition, my country imported 1.16 million tons of pork from January to March, an increase of 22% year-on-year, while imports of beef and poultry increased by 20.4% and 26.4% respectively.
From the perspective of pork consumption demand, the period from March to April each year is usually the off-season for consumption demand, and the Qingming Festival has limited boost to consumption.
The stampede effect caused by the concentrated production of large pigs is another important reason for the continuous decline in prices.
Zhu Zengyong told reporters that due to the lack of a significant boost in holiday consumption, a large number of large pigs were panicked for slaughter at the end of March and early April, which significantly suppressed the price of standard pigs.
For the industry, it can be described as a mixed blessing.
The good news is that the price of live pigs has stopped falling and stabilized recently.
In the fourth week of April, the price of live pigs in the 500 bazaars monitored by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs was 23.61 yuan/kg, which was only a slight drop of 0.1%.
Zhu Zengyong believes that firstly, the impact of slaughtering big pigs on the market is weaker than in the previous period.
Second, slaughter companies are bullish on pork prices in the third quarter and purchase live pigs to increase inventory.
The third is the increase in speculative secondary fattening. Farmers are bullish on the price of pigs from May to June and purchase 100 kg to 120 kg of standard pigs for secondary fattening.
The fourth is the market correction for the oversold price of pigs in the early period.
"The price of pigs fell sharply at the end of March, and the rebound of pig prices in northern producing areas in mid-to-late April is more of a self-correction by the market." Zhu Zengyong said.
The worry is that some farmers have already suffered losses.
As the price of pigs continues to fall, and the cost of feed and epidemic prevention has increased, the production costs of self-breeding and self-raising pigs are currently significantly higher than before, and the piglet farmers who purchase piglets have already suffered losses.
The average breeding cost of self-breeding and self-raising farmers in the industry in April was 16 to 17 yuan per kilogram, and some farmers even cost as much as 18 to 20 yuan per kilogram. The decline in pig prices caused their profits to fall to around 700 yuan per head in April. , The level of profitability is significantly lower than before.
The cost of outsourced piglet farmers is about 27 yuan/kg, and they have been losing money since the beginning of March this year. In April, each pig lost 300 yuan to 500 yuan.
Regarding the later trend of pig prices, it is necessary to analyze the comprehensive supply and consumption.
By the end of March this year, the national live pig stock had recovered to 417 million heads, which has reached more than 96% of the 2017 level.
It is expected that the stock will return to normal in the second quarter, the supply of live pigs will return to normal in the fourth quarter, the pork supply situation will continue to improve, and the downward trend of pig prices will remain unchanged, but there is still room for a seasonal rebound.
"It is expected that pig prices will stop falling in May, and will rebound seasonally in the third quarter, but there is little room for recovery. It is recommended that farmers, while preventing and controlling the disease, promptly eliminate ternary sows and binary sows with outdated production capacity, and take advantage of the trend. Avoid speculative second fattening." Zhu Zengyong said.
Huang Junyi
Huang Junyi