Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

Hog production was impacted by devastating typhoons that hit China's Guangxi Province a week ago. Dead pigs pose a disease risk and a pork deficit in a region that accounts for more than 1 in 20 pigs raised in the country. Torrential rains from super-typhoon Maysak inundated the region on July 6. Entire villages were flooded or swept away after the release of water from reservoirs and the breaching of at least one major dam. Images from the most seriously affected areas, including Hengzhou, Guigang, and Binyang, look like war zones. Officially only 39 people were killed and 9 were missing, but the real death toll had to be much larger. Chinese news propaganda has quickly shifted to venomous snakes on the loose, light-hearted coverage of rescue teams, company donations, and fun ways to cope with flooding. The death toll for pigs is visibly higher. The Youtube video below shows thousands of dead pig carcasses, dozens of surviving pigs stuck on the roofs of their barns, swimming in fl...

In a terse online report China acknowledged that a South African serotype of foot-and-mouth disease has entered the country for the first time. The report of 2 widely separated outbreaks occurring simultaneously is implausible, and emergency distribution of vaccines suggests a much wider spread. The inexplicable jump of the virus to China from halfway across the world, under-reporting of outbreaks, and silence from State media bear close similarity to African swine fever's entry to China 8 years ago.    On March 28, 2026 China's agriculture ministry reported two outbreaks of the SAT1 (Southern Africa Type 1) serotype of foot and mouth disease in two remote locations: Yining County of Yili Prefecture in Xinjiang and in Gulang County of Gansu Provnce. The report said that 142 of 513 cattle at a market in Yining County were sickened by the disease. At a farm in Gulang County 77 of 5716 cattle were sickened. The report did not say when the outbreaks occurred. Both outbreaks were ...

 China's swine industry is struggling with an epidemic of Getah Virus, also known as GETV (盖塔病毒). One video posted on Chinese social media calls GETV "The biggest crisis since African swine fever."  The mosquito-borne virus can infect entire farms, causing diarrhea, staggering movements, and discoloration of skin. It causes sows to abort and reduces survival rates of weaned piglets. An article appearing in mid-September reported that the virus had been detected on pig farms in Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Henan, and Sichuan Provinces. It has also appeared in Hebei. Most information about the current outbreak comes from farmers posting short videos on Douyin (China's Tick Tock) about GETV outbreaks and sharing guidance for avoiding it. Videos posted as recently as yesterday show barns filled with dead pigs, excavators dumping live pigs into burial pits, sows with blotches on their skin, and pigs staggering around a pen. Thumbnails of v ideos about GETV outbreaks poste...

China reported an outbreak of African swine fever in Guangxi Province, the first officially reported in 3 years. The outbreak sickened 215 pigs and killed 209 in 4 villages of Guangxi's Nopo County, a remote mountainous area bordering Vietnam. The 4 villages affected have a population of just 795 pigs. According to the report, authorities have taken the usual measures to control the disease by instituting quarantines, disinfecting premises, and taking other preventive measures. Authorities say the disease risk is under control.  According to the announcement, distribution of live pigs is being tightly controlled in parts of the province. Controls were especially tight during June and July near Guangxi's port cities of Fangcheng and Qinzhou when pigs are likely to be imported from Vietnam. Reuters reported last week that Vietnam has had 100,000 pigs infected with ASF in 972 outbreaks this year, up from 30,000 infections during the same period last year.  This month's outbr...

Chinese state media reported an anthrax outbreak that infected 5 workers on a beef cattle farm in Qiji Town in western Shandong Province. Authorities apparently waited until they could no longer cover up the outbreak before issuing a public report. Social media reveals skepticism about government reporting on disease outbreaks. According to a report issued August 2 by China Central Television (and in English by China Daily ), five workers on a beef farm in Shandong Province's Qiji Town had "mild" infections of anthrax on their skin and are being treated in isolation. The outbreak was in Yanggu County in western Shandong's Liaocheng City. Authorities said all animals on the infected farm have been culled and properly disposed, local farms have been quarantined, the local area has been sanitized, and testing has found no indication of disease in other people or animals.  The report explained that anthrax is an acute zoonotic infectious disease caused by Bacillus anthra...

Disease is the biggest of 10 problems facing China's pig farms according to a 2023 article in the Chinese industry periodical Pigs Today  ( 今日养猪业) . The author, a member of a swine industry commission, identified a cocktail of viruses and bacterial infections that keep nearly all swine herds unhealthy. Another article in the same issue focused on disease problems listed the same diseases, warned that diseases are becoming more common, new virus strains are appearing, and pigs are periodically poisoned by mycotoxins in feed.  Moreover, disease contributes to other problems identified by the Pigs Today author. Diseases undermine productivity, raise production costs, reduce the Chinese industry's international competitiveness, contribute to overuse of antibiotics, and epidemics are usually the cause of cyclical gyrations in the industry. The pig-problem author pointed to African swine fever (ASF) as the most harmful disease and described the ASF situation as severe--even though ...

China is on alert for the impending spread of the COVID-19 virus in the countryside. A December 24 videoconference on rural COVID-19 prevention and control ordered officials to be on the alert to fight the spread of the virus in rural areas expected as millions of people return to their home towns during the January holidays.  Today's Securities Times reported  that the virus was spreading rapidly in late December. An online survey conducted by provincial disease control authorities showed that 35% of Hainan Province's population was infected during the week of December 19-25, up from 5.6% the previous week. Hainan authorities expect the infection rate to reach 50%. Various cities in Zhejiang Province had infection rates of 30%-to-40%, and Sichuan Province estimated its infection rate at 64.5% during the last week of December 2022. Officials at the December 24 meeting were warned that the countryside is a weak spot for virus control due to the vast population with low vaccina...

China is waging war on meat and seafood smuggling as authorities pile on barriers to legal imports that include strict approvals, reams of documentation, and onerous covid testing, disinfection and tracking. Chinese state-controlled media have reported a series of smuggler interceptions this year from just about every coastal province. Several articles reveal there is a national crackdown on smuggling underway. Coast guard authorities board a ship in Shandong Province suspected of smuggling in March 2022. Source: Xinhua . Official media reported that the coast guard had intercepted 75 ships smuggling over 8000 metric tons of frozen products from January 1 to March 15 this year.  Local media in Jiangmen City in Guangdong Province reported that the coast guard intercepted two boats loaded with 70 metric tons of beef and tripe packed in white bags on May 25 and 27. The products were valued at 7 million yuan (over $1 million). In April, Guangdong's anti-smuggling office reported 398...

Chinese officials are locking down millions of people to prevent the latest spread of the covid-19 virus, but they need to make exceptions for hundreds of millions of farmers dispersing to their fields to plough, seed and fertilize their crops this spring. During March, China had nearly 104,000 covid-19 infections detected in 29 of the country's 31 provinces, according to China's National Health Commission. The cases are widely spread and occurring frequently, prompting stronger virus prevention and control lockdowns and mass-testing. The highly contagious Omicron variant makes the virus situation "severe and complicated," the commission said.  The conflict between epidemic control and spring farm work has come to the fore in Jilin Province, one of the two primary case clusters (Shanghai is the other) and a northeastern province that is one of the country's top suppliers of corn.  Spring field work in China Jilin Provincial Governor Han Jun held an April 1 video c...

Chinese pig farming tycoons moaned about problems with African swine fever, cash flow, regulatory thickets, and access to imported corn in their comments on the sidelines of last week's National Peoples Congress.  Liu Hanyuan, chairman of Tongwei Group, fretted about a recent resurgence of African swine fever . Liu said that 7 percent of trucks had tested positive for the virus at the end of 2021--a ten-fold increase from the beginning of the year. He added that 4 percent of markets near pig-farming areas tested positive, a six-fold increase. While it is often presumed that biosecurity on big pig farms protects them from the virus, Liu revealed that incidence of African swine fever is as high as 25 percent in the biggest pig farming companies.  According to Liu, the cost of veterinary drugs has increased 50 yuan per head this year to combat the ASF threat. Liu warned that half of the pigs entering slaughterhouses in some regions are underweight pigs (under 85 kg) that are most...

In 2020, China adopted  a system to test imported "cold chain" foods for covid-19 virus at the border; disinfect all imported food shipments at the border; track the shipments as they move through the marketing chain; segregate imported foods in storage, transportation and retail; and require QR codes at point of purchase. The actual science behind the program is squishy, and it's not clear that any live covid-19 virus has ever been detected. The crisis gave Chinese regulators cover to impose onerous requirements that few exporters have complained about. China's imported cold chain food program requires imports to be segregated from domestic products with a QR code that allows consumers to view required certificates of inspection, covid tests, and disinfection. Source: Xinhua News . In the early months of the pandemic Chinese authorities tried to dispel concerns about risk of covid-19 transmission by domestic food shipments. A circular written by a Chinese scientist...

Chinese consumers have been clearing off supermarket shelves as they worry about new virus outbreaks and floods. Authorities insist supplies are ample and say there's no reason to hoard food, but citizens don't seem to believe them.  China is experiencing its biggest covid outbreak since the 2019-20 Wuhan outbreak. Though cases are few, these are the most geographically widespread and the delta variant is more transmissible than last year's version. China's health commission reported 85 new cases of covid-19 on August 4, bringing the cumulative total to 1,285. New domestic cases were spread across Jiangsu (40 cases), Hunan (9), Beijing (3), Shandong (3), Henan (3), Yunnan (3), and Hubei (1). Twenty-nine cases from abroad were discovered in Shanghai, Yunnan, Fujian, Guangdong, and Shandong.  The new covid outbreaks follow disastrous flooding in Henan Province July 17-24 that inundated fields, filled barns with mud, and drowned livestock. Storms from another typhoon foll...

Big Chinese swine companies are transforming the industry by replacing rudimentary "backyard" brick piggeries with huge automated barns, but the hefty overhead costs of the new farms are also boosting hog production costs. Consequently, falling hog prices are hitting their breakeven level faster than expected. That could put a brake on the industry's expansion and create a permanent opportunity for imported pork in China's market. On May 17, an official from China's livestock and veterinary bureau  claimed the country's swine inventory has almost fully recovered from its dramatic shrinkage during the 2018-19 African swine fever (ASF) epidemic. But he also warned that the steady drop in hog prices this year has put Chinese farmers perilously close to financial losses. The cadre of swine companies--despite being privately owned--delight Chinese officials who love big things they can subsidize and manipulate. On May 19, Vice Minister of Agriculture Ma Youxiang  m...