China is building huge hog barns in a drive to increase pork
production and displace small family-scale production.
One example is a two-barn
complex that will house 10,000 sows birthing 280,000 market hogs per year. It sits
on a mere 180 acres near Zonguagan in southwestern China.
It is one of a record number
of large-scale projects that will be built in China this year.
Some in the industry estimate
it could build several hundred sow farms with about 5,000-8,000 head this year,
even more than last year, accelerating the transformation of the world’s
biggest pork industry.
“As
more large firms enter the market, food safety will increase and costs will
drop. Global competitiveness will increase and China will certainly export,”
said Fang Shijun, chief researcher at research firm Huitong Data.
Fang
predicts a growing surplus of pork from 2018 to 2020, as production grows amid
slowing domestic demand.
The genetics
are coming from PIC in the United Kingdom and Canada as well as a number of
other Canadian and U.S. suppliers.
Feed
depends on huge imports of soybeans.
