Pork output down 31%, prices doubled in Q4 2019

China's Q42019 pork output was down 31 percent from a year ago and China's swine population was the smallest in 25 years, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics this week. The Bureau estimated that the doubling of pork prices from a year earlier accounted for about half of the 4.5-percent increase in China's December CPI.

The Bureau's January 17 release of preliminary macroeconomic data reported that 2019 pork output fell 21.3 percent from 2018. Poultry production expanded 12.3 percent year-on-year, and egg, beef, and mutton output also grew. However, the 5.1-mmt gain in other animal protein output offset less than half of the -11.5-mmt loss of pork output in 2019.

China Livestock Production, 2019
Item	2019 output	Change from year earlier
	Million metric tons	Million metric tons	Percent
Pork	42.55	-11.5	-21.3
Poultry	22.39	3.0	12.3
Eggs	33.09	1.8	5.8
Beef	6.67	0.2	3.6
Mutton	4.88	0.1	2.6
Source: China National Bureau of Statistics.

The Bureau estimated the number of hogs slaughtered was 544.9 million head (down 21.6 percent), and the swine inventory at the end of 2019 was 310.4 million head, down 27.5 percent from 2018. The Bureau's estimate of the shrinkage is significantly smaller than estimates issued by the agriculture ministry, but the swine inventory estimate is nevertheless the smallest they have reported since 1984, two and a half decades ago. The slaughter number was the smallest reported since 2002.

China National Bureau of Statistics data.

Some calculations from previous reports show that the reduction in pork output was concentrated in the second half of 2019. Pork output in the first and second quarters of 2019 was down less than 1 mmt (about 5 percent) from the same quarters in 2018. In the third and fourth quarters of 2019 pork output was down about 5 mmt from a year earlier. The year-on-year declines were -42.1 percent for the third quarter and -31.2 percent for the fourth quarter.

China's quarterly pork output, 2018-19
	2018	2019	Change	Percent change
	Million metric tons		MMT	Percent
Q1	15.43	14.63	-0.8	-5.2
Q2	10.71	10.1	-0.6	-5.7
Q3	12.29	7.11	-5.18	-42.1
Q4	15.61	10.74	-4.87	-31.2
Annual	54.04	42.55	-11.49	-21.3
Calculated from China National Bureau of Statistics reports.

Producer prices for pork were up 50 percent during 2019 and 109.5 percent in Q4 2019 from a year earlier, according to the Bureau's report.

A National Bureau of Statistics report on the December 2019 consumer price index estimated that pork prices were up 97 percent from a year earlier. The Bureau estimated that the increase in pork prices accounted for 2.34 percentage points of the 4.5-percent year-on-year increase in the December CPI.