The Chinese government issued “official statistics” recently on the tonnage of compound feed produced in China during 2018.

According to Ciarán Carroll, editor of the Teagasc Advisory Newsletter, the data would appear to be “interesting reading as it shows that the volume of compound pig feed produced only reduced by 0.9%”.

Continuing, Carroll explained in the April newsletter that “this is an amazing statistic”.

He explained: “Considering 65% of all meat produced in China is pigmeat and the two main regions for pig meat production [Guangdong and Shandong] are both reporting sow herd culling at 30%.”

However, he noted that a recent industry tour to China found the Hubel region “had culling as high as 50%”.

The low reduction in feed usage statistics would also lead us to question the data on African Swine Fever (ASF) outbreaks.

“To date there have been 117 reported cases across the whole country.”

Carroll noted that this would appear to be a “very small” number considering the size of China.

However, these 117 cases have caused the reduction in the Chinese sow herd of 6.5 million sows and approximately 50 million pigs to date [with more reductions in the pipeline].

“This appears to be an amazing reaction to relatively few ASF cases considering that China has a similar land mass to the US.”

Concluding, he said: “To put it another way, the 117 cases equate to one case per 32,500 square miles.”