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As a result of injudicious expansion in hog production, and in the face of decreasing consumption producers are experienced losses of up to $10 per hog on average through 2023. Reuters has disclosed that the Ministry of Agriculture will “guide” (coerce?) lower production. Due to negative margins, hogs including breeding sows have been sent to processing in large numbers, further disrupting the relationship between supply and demand and reducing prices. The total herd at the end of 2023 was 434 million head, down 18 million from December 2022. The sow herd included in the total was down 5.7 percent or 2.5 million head from December 2022 to 41.4 million.
The Ministry of Agriculture has also mandated lower protein diets for hogs to restrict the need to import soybeans from both Brazil and the U.S. At this time, soybean meal is included at 13 percent on average in growing diets down 10 percent from 2022 fo equivalent to an annual reduction of 9 million metric tons of soybeans.
In 2023 China produced 58 million metric tons of pork and imported 2.7 million tons. By comparison in 2023, the U.S. industry produced 27,970 million pounds of pork, equivalent to 14.0 million metric tons or approximately 35 percent of the output in China.
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