USDA: Global pork production down 16% in 2020 - China's pork prices have doubled The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates a further decline in global pork production from 113 million tonnes in 2018 to 95 million tonnes in 2020 in the latest market report. A reduction to 106 million tonnes is predicted for 2019 already. The main cause is African swine fever in China and neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Philippines and Korea. According to the projections of various experts, the Chinese pig population should have fallen by at least 30% , according to other estimates, up to 50% of the disease. With a 50% share of world-wide Chinese pig farming, these figures are weighing heavily on the global pork supply.For the year 2020, the supply situation in China should intensify again, because the sowing stocks have been decimated so much that there is no chance that enough piglets will be available for the fattening. The current approach of harassing pigs is of limited use. Pork production in 2020 will fall back into China to below 35 million tonnes. This is almost 20 million t less than in 2018. This decline corresponds to approx. 85% of total EU production a year. To compensate in part, the Chinese should double their meat imports from beef, pork and poultry meat to 8 million t. Its own poultry meat production is to be increased by 3 million t. For protein supply, more fish and other protein carriers are used. A full demand coverage will probably not be reached. In the other pigmeat production areas, a further increase is anticipated. First and foremost is the US, with an increase of approx .9% to approx. 13 million t. Brazil is up 10%, passing the 4 million t mark for the first time . In the EU , for environmental and livestock reasons, there is an increase of 1.3% , mainly in Spain. The world-wide scarce supply situation leads to rising meat prices . In China itself, the average producer price has reached € 4.75 / kg pork . In the exporting countries with delivery to China, prices are rising on a broad scale.
