Securities Times reporter Zhao Liyun

　　Since March this year, the price of live pigs across the country has continued to fluctuate and rise. After entering mid-June, the pig breeding industry, which has been in losses for a long time, began to gradually return to profitability.

　　Analysts believe that the current pig cycle has obvious characteristics of rising at the bottom, and subsequent pig prices will continue to rise.

However, according to the calculation of the number of breeding sows in the second half of 2021, the number of live pigs in the third and fourth quarters is relatively abundant, and it is expected that the price increase of live pigs in the second half of the year may not exceed the second quarter.

　　short-term surge

　　"The price has risen a bit recently, and a pound can be sold for seven or eight yuan. If you keep it well, you won't lose much." After more than a year of loss, Li Hua (pseudonym), a retail farmer in Henan, told the Securities Times · e company Reporter, seeing the rising trend of pig prices in recent months, colleagues all feel that the market is getting better. "You can buy some pig babies and raise them to make money."

　　From mid-to-late March to mid-June this year, the price of live pigs across the country showed an overall upward trend.

Zhuochuang Information monitoring data shows that as of June 20, the price of pigs has been rising for 3 months, with a maximum increase of 42%.

　　Souzhu.com data also shows that as of June 21, the national average price of lean-meat live pigs was 16.33 yuan/kg.

At this time, the price has risen by nearly 5 yuan/kg from the staged low of 11.8 yuan/kg on March 21, and the increase rate is at a medium level.

　　In the futures market, the main contract of hog futures, 2209, hit a new high since its listing on June 21, reaching 19,970 yuan/ton. This price has also risen by more than 24% from the lowest price of 16,080 yuan/ton on March 17.

　　"The current price is generally close to the cost line, but it has not completely gotten rid of losses. For some companies with higher costs, the cost line is generally 17-18 yuan/kg, so the current price is close to the cost line." China Feng Yonghui, an analyst at the Live Pig Warning Network, said.

　　From 2021 to March 2022, with the continuous decline of pig prices, the price of grain and feed has risen sharply, and the pig breeding industry has entered a deep loss. Until the end of April 2022, the price of live pigs nationwide will reach above 15 yuan/kg. The price ratio was able to get out of the first-level warning range of excessive decline that had lasted for 9 weeks.

　　However, under the current self-propagating and self-supporting mode, farmers may still step below the break-even line.

　　According to Soochow futures data, as of the week of June 17, 2022, the national pig grain price ratio was 5.63, a month-on-month increase of 2.36%.

　　This week, the profit of self-propagating and self-supporting pig breeding was -119.45 yuan/head, an increase of 37.18 yuan/head compared with the same period last week; the profit of piglet breeding under the purchased piglet model was 85.38 yuan/head, an increase of 38.14 yuan/head compared with the same period last week. .

　　"Last year, raising pigs lost a lot of money, so many households abandoned them before the Spring Festival this year. Only we, the old breadwinners, are still holding on. Now that the market is looking better, everyone is discussing how to raise more pigs, but the price of piglets is also high. Li Hua said frankly that although his family mainly focuses on self-propagation and self-support, many sows have been eliminated in this cycle of troughs, and it is difficult to make up for the production capacity in the short term.

Seeing that pig prices are rising steadily, she and her peers also plan to purchase piglets for fattening.

But in March, the price of piglets that were only 400 to 500 yuan per head has now risen by more than 200 yuan.

　　According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the national average price of piglets in the third week of June was 36.01 yuan/kg, up 2.2% from the previous week, but still down 31.7% year-on-year.

That week, the national average price of live pigs was 16.13 yuan/kg, up 1.6% from the previous week and up 6.6% year-on-year.

　　Sufficient supply

　　In the second quarter, the domestic hog market is still in a low season for demand, but the short-term increase of over 40% exceeded market expectations.

　　"Through the price feedback, it can be confirmed that this round of pig cycle has basically bottomed out." Sun Weijie, an analyst at Zhuochuang, believes that after mid-March this year, the price of live pigs can achieve an increase of more than 40%. The emotional support of the state's purchase and storage is that the cost of breeding and the bullish expectation in the future together support the reluctance of the breeding end to sell, which will lead to the reduction of the slaughter in stages.

Whether pig prices can rebound sharply in the second half of the year mainly depends on the number of breeding sows and the number of live pigs.

　　The National Bureau of Statistics announced that in May 2022, the number of breeding sows nationwide was 41.92 million, a month-on-month increase of 0.36%, a year-on-year decrease of 4.73%, and a decrease of 8.15% from the highest point in June last year. 2.24% higher.

　　According to the sample data of Yongyi Consulting, the number of fertile sows in May 2022 will be 1.0755 million, an increase of 1.23% month-on-month and a year-on-year decrease of 13.61%.

　　Sun Weijie believes that from April 2022 to the present, it is more common for the breeding side to hold the slaughter and delay the slaughter.

　　"At present, the price of live pigs has just risen above the cost line of breeding, and the sentiment that the market is expected to rise in the second half of the year is relatively heavy, and the phenomenon of weight gain at the breeding end may be more significant." He said that through the first 12 phases, sows can be bred in stock. The month-to-month change in volume, and the forecast of the monthly slaughter volume of live pigs in the second half of the year shows that from the trend point of view, the number of live pigs released to slaughter from June to July this year still increased month-on-month, and after August, it may decrease as a whole, but the decline is not large; from the data point of view, 6- In December, the monthly slaughter of 6.05 million live pigs by sample enterprises exceeded the average number of slaughtered from January to May by 2.37%.

Therefore, it is expected that the supply of live pigs in the second half of this year will still be relatively abundant.

　　Under the circumstance that the bottom of the pig cycle has been formed and the upward trend of live pig prices is confirmed, the abundant supply will undoubtedly limit the room for the price of live pigs to rise to a certain extent.

　　Sun Weijie said that in the second half of the year, if there is no significant force in the demand side, the price of live pigs will increase by more than 40% or it may be difficult to reproduce.

As far as the current price is calculated, the high point may be difficult to exceed 23 yuan/kg.

　　"It is now basically certain that there is no problem in the live pig market getting rid of losses. In the later stage, each fat pig can have a profit space of at least 200-300 yuan." Feng Yonghui also believes that the subsequent live pig prices will generally maintain an upward trend, but the room for growth will not be large. Not too big.

　　He pointed out that the price rebound of the live pig market is the worst off-season for consumption in a year, which also shows that the supply of live pigs is decreasing. , there is very little chance that the price will fall again in the short term.

However, where the price of pigs will rise in the future depends mainly on the strength of consumption recovery.