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Outbreak in China could be supportive of pork prices

The recent outbreak of African Swine Fever in China could bring good news to US pork producers’ bottom line.

University of Missouri livestock economist Scott Brown says this could be a total game changer – at a time when pork prices have been plummeting. “We certainly would talk about higher hog prices as a result,” he says.  “I will say we’ve been talking about 4 to 4.5 percent increases in US pork production and the need to export that additional production if we wanted to keep prices higher.”

Brown says the significant distance between all of the reported cases suggests producers are having trouble containing the outbreak.  Because there is no vaccine, the industry relies on heightened biosecurity, rapid diagnosis, isolation, and culling to contain the spread of the disease.  “One has to ask themselves how much depopulation do you have to talk about to get that under control,” he says.  “You can really look at those cases and it is the beginning of what could be a lot of problems in China.”

China’s sow herd has between 44 and 45 million sows, compared to the US sow herd which has about 6-million-head. On Monday, China reported its third case of the disease.  Three cases have now been found in three different provinces of the country.

Brown says long-term if the US pork industry begins to increase exports as a result of declining production in China, consumers in the US could eventually see higher prices at the meat case.

AUDIO: Scott Brown, Livestock Economist