CNR Beijing, January 11 (Reporter Zhu Min) According to a report by the Voice of China, China Central Radio and Television, every New Year's Day and Spring Festival are the peak season for pork consumption, and the peak season is often a period of high prices.
However, the price of pork in the market this year is not prosperous in the peak season, and the price of live pigs continues to decline, and the price of pork in many places has fallen below 8 yuan per catty.
Pork farmers who were hoping to sell at a good price before the Spring Festival did not wait for the expected price.
The price of pigs rarely goes down against the trend. Is it insufficient demand or excessive supply?
When will the "inflection point" of this round of pork continue to fall?
In the past few days, Wang Wenzhi, a pig farmer in Dalian, Liaoning Province, is a little troubled. He has more than 300 pigs about to be released. He wanted to make more money during the Spring Festival, but the current market has made him very disappointed. , the price of less than 300 catties is only 7.5 yuan per catty.”
Wang Wenzhi told reporters that before New Year's Day, standard pigs weighing about 200 to 250 kilograms could still be sold at a price of 8.1 to 8.2 yuan per kilogram. He originally thought that the price of pigs would continue to rise as the Spring Festival approached, but unexpectedly it reversed. , the current price has fallen below his breeding cost line. If you sell it at the current price, a pig will lose nearly 200 yuan.
Wang Wenzhi said: "Our cost is 8 yuan per catty for standard pigs under 300 catties, and 9 yuan to 10 yuan for pigs from 400 catties to 500 catties, which is a cost. All lose money."
Also disappointed was Li Gaofeng, a farmer in Shanxi.
In June 2021, the price of pigs fell sharply. Li Gaofeng eliminated a batch of sows and plans to add another batch by the end of the year, just in time for the upward trend of the pig cycle in 2022.
But now, he hesitated.
Li Gaofeng said: "I haven't added new (sows) yet. It's already January 2022. The first half of the year will definitely be a low point. Needless to say, it must be a period of loss. There may be a little profit in the second half of the year, but it will not be. Very high. I don't expect the inflection point to come in 2022."
Live pig prices have continued to fluctuate since 2021.
Before September, the price of live pigs continued to run at a low level, and the average price of domestic live pigs reached a minimum of 11 yuan/kg.
Entering October, the price began to rebound. By the end of November, the price of live pigs once reached more than 18 yuan/kg.
However, since December, the market has fallen again. As of January 7, 2022, the average domestic pig price was 15.4 yuan/kg, down nearly 15% month-on-month and more than 50% year-on-year.
It is understood that the "low price effect" of pork in September and October 2021 has triggered a wave of pork consumption boom. Many food companies stock up on meat, and the market for pickled sausages and enemas will appear earlier, overdrafting pork consumption in the later period.
Despite the short-term pullback in pork consumption after New Year's Day, the outbreak of the local epidemic has had a severe impact on the catering industry and tourism industry. In addition, the change in consumer consumption structure has led to overall weakness in pork consumption, directly suppressing the rebound in live pig prices.
And the reasons for the downturn in pork prices do not stop there.
By the end of the third quarter of 2021, the number of live pigs in my country exceeded 430 million, an increase of 18.2% year-on-year, and the number of reproductive sows reached 44.59 million, an increase of 16.7% year-on-year.
Chen Guanghua, deputy director of the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, has predicted in 2021 that from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022, there will be a significant increase in listed fat pigs.
Chen Guanghua said: "In terms of breeding, according to the monitoring of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, since March (2021), the number of new-born piglets in large-scale pig farms across the country has been more than 30 million per month and continues to grow. These piglets are fattened for 6 months. It is expected that from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022, the listed fat pigs will increase significantly year-on-year, and the relatively surplus supply of live pigs will continue for some time."
Wang Na, director of agricultural product research at Everbright Futures, believes that after the Spring Festival, pork prices still have the risk of continuing to decline.
Wang Na said: "The whole price will remain relatively weak before the Spring Festival. After the Spring Festival, the demand will be weaker, and the supply will continue to increase, so we should be alert to the risk that the price will continue to decline after the Spring Festival."
According to the current pig price, self-propagation and self-raising may still have some profits, but if the cost of fattening and breeding is not well controlled, losses may occur.
But what worries farmers the most is not the immediate profit and loss, but the difficulty in grasping the market.
Whether to expand production capacity, reduce production capacity, or maintain the status quo, I can't make up my mind.
Some institutional research reports show that the cumulative reduction of breeding sows has reached about 7%. In the case of low pig prices, the reduction is expected to accelerate. By the end of the first quarter of 2022, the cumulative reduction rate is expected to reach more than 12%. The price inflection point of this "pig cycle" is expected to appear from April to June 2022.
Zhu Zengyong, a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, believes that the inflection point will not appear until 2023 at the earliest.
Zhu Zengyong said: "Although the number of fertile sows has been slightly reduced from July (2021), the overall reduction is still relatively mild. Therefore, from the current changes in the inventory and production capacity of fertile sows, Look, it's not enough to drive a price inflection point in the second half of 2022."
In recent years, pork prices have fluctuated considerably, with high prices hurting people and low prices hurting farmers.
In order to get out of such a vicious circle, in September 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued the "Implementation Plan for the Control of Live Pig Production Capacity".
The plan sets a control target for the number of reproductive sows, that is, the normal population of reproductive sows is stable at about 41 million, and the minimum number of sows is not less than 37 million.
The monthly inventory of reproductive sows is in the range of 95%-105% of the normal inventory, which is the green area; the range of 90%-95% and 105%-110% of the normal inventory is the yellow area, and corresponding control measures will be activated.
Tang Renjian, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, recently emphasized: "The mechanism for regulating the production capacity of live pigs has been established, and all localities should focus on the two core indicators of the number of reproductive sows and the number of large-scale farm households to implement relevant requirements. Environmental protection, loans, insurance, etc. Effective and basic support policies will be stabilized. In critical times, according to the regulations of the regulatory mechanism, measures such as temporary assistance can be introduced in real time.”