BEIJING - As many as half of China’s breeding pigs have either died from African swine fever or been slaughtered because of the spreading disease, twice as many as officially acknowledged, according to the estimates of four people who supply large farms.
Three other executives at producers of vaccines, feed additives and genetics also estimate losses of 40% to 50%, based on falling sales for their companies’ products and direct knowledge of the extent of the deadly disease on farms across the country. Sows, or adult females bred to produce piglets for slaughter, account for roughly one in 10 pigs in China. A decline in the sow herd usually equates to a similar drop in pork output, industry experts say.
The vast and fragmented nature of China’s agricultural sector, a secretive bureaucracy and what is widely believed among industry experts to be poor Chinese data quality, makes the full extent of the disease impossible to ascertain. China had 375 million pigs at the end of March, 10% fewer than at the same time a year ago, according to the National Bureau of Statistics . It had 38 million sows, a decline of 11% on the year, the NBS said.Dick Hordijk, chief executive at Dutch co-operative Royal Agrifirm, told Dutch radio station BNR last month that his firm’s profits in China would be wiped out by the disease, which was spreading like “an oil slick”.
Major livestock producing provinces including Hebei, Henan and Shandong are believed by some in the industry to have been especially hard-hit.In Shandong, the fourth largest pig-raising province in China, more than half of farms with large numbers of sows were now empty, Johnson estimated, based on his conversations with farmers and larger pig producers.
In Hebei too, the northern province surrounding Beijing, many counties have few sows left, said Johnson, who saw his first case of the disease there in October.