28 Aug 2020

An overview of pork production and consumption in China

The Chinese swine industry is the main pig producer and its pig production sector breeds as many pigs as the rest of the countries in the world together. In the last years, the average intake of meat, especially pork, continues increasing and China needs to import pork products to cover the growing demand of this […]

The Chinese swine industry is the main pig producer and its pig production sector breeds as many pigs as the rest of the countries in the world together. In the last years, the average intake of meat, especially pork, continues increasing and China needs to import pork products to cover the growing demand of this populated country. In general, China is improving industry and the country is moving towards self-sufficience.

In rural regions, there was a much higher pork intake, where traditional farms are still present with a large number of facilities. Those poor-quality farms share market with the more professional ones. As Kolb states:

Most traditional farms have a factory look and have buildings that were designed for manufacturing purposes, making them very difficult to ventilate. The layout was simply copied from other industrial facilities to save costs. Larger and more professional pork producers are seeking out Western input. Facilities and pig flow are improving in the modernizing parts of the industry.

In the last decades, China is modernizing fast and the same is happeing with the main pig producers. However, these still represent a small percentage of the total pig production of the country.