China is increasingly desperate to hide the devastating effect of African Swine Fever, which has already reduced pig breeding-sows by 50% - reuters.com - scmp.com
The plague has been reported in 18 of China's 31 Provinces - Since the outbreak began, smugglers have spread the plague from China to Mongolia, Russia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea - As Chinese farmers have lost or culled their herds, demand for U.S. soybeans and corn has plummeted
The strictly-censored Emperor-verse in China reported this month its sow herd declined by a record 23.9% in May from a year earlier. But those dealing directly with China's pig farms say losses are more than double the censored government figures, with no end in sight.
“Something like 50% of sows are dead,” said Edgar Wayne Johnson, a veterinarian who has spent 14 years in China and founded Enable Agricultural Technology Consulting, a Beijing-based farm services firm with clients across the country.
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.
Losses are not only from infected pigs dying or being culled, but also farmers sending pigs to market early when the disease is discovered nearby, farmers and industry insiders have told Reuters, which analysts say has kept a lid on pork prices in recent months as the number of pigs slaughtered in China is down only 35%. But over the next few months, the number of pigs brought to market will be reduced by more than the 50% reduction in breeding sows.
However, prices began rising substantially this month and China’s agricultural ministry has said they could surge by 70 percent in coming months as a result of the outbreak. Pork accounts for more than 60% of Chinese meat consumption.
“Almost all the pigs here have died,” said a farmer in Bobai county in China’s southwestern Guangxi region. Guangxi produced more than 33 million pigs in 2017, and is a key supplier to southern China. “We were not allowed to report the pig disease,” she told Reuters, declining to reveal her name because of the sensitivity of the issue, adding that authorities have detained farmers for “spreading rumors” about the disease.
Reuters also spoke to farmers in the cities of Zhongshan, Foshan and Maoming in neighboring Guangdong province, all of whom had lost hundreds or thousands of pigs to the disease in the last three months. No outbreaks have been officially reported in those cities. None of the farmers agreed to be identified.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on June 24 the disease has been “effectively controlled”, state news agency Xinhua reported. But just two days ago admitted to another outbreak in Guangxi.
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