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 Two new cases reported in the southwestern province of Yunnan on
Sunday came as China enters its peak pig production period ahead of
the country's most important festival, the New Year holiday, which
will be held in early February 2019.
"The thing that we worried about the most has now happened," said
Feng Yonghui, chief analyst at industry portal Soozhu.com, referring
to the spread of disease from northeast to southwest.
China has reported more than 40 outbreaks of the highly contagious
disease in 11 provinces and municipalities, culling an estimated
200,000 pigs. All outbreaks had been in the north and eastern
provinces until the first case in Yunnan.
The latest outbreaks, first reported by the official CCTV, were on
two small farms in Zhaotong, a city in the northeast of Yunnan. On
Monday, another outbreak was reported in eastern Zhejiang province.
Zhaotong is located almost 3,000 km (1,865 miles) from the city of
Shenyang in the northeastern province of Liaoning where the first
outbreak was reported in early August.
"Now there's only some provinces that haven't confirmed any cases
but it's very unlikely that they will be clean. Basically, it's
already everywhere," said Pan Chenjun, a senior analyst at Rabobank.
For a graphic on Swine fever in China, see - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PDt6Ud
A total of 545 pigs had already died on the two farms in Zhaotong
when the disease was confirmed. Almost 7,000 pigs in the 3-km (1.9
miles) area around the farms will be culled by midday on Monday, the
website of state media Yunnan Daily said on Monday.
The cases in the southwest could have a major impact on the pork
market, warned analysts, as the region both produces and consumes
the most pork in China.
"In the southwest, everyone eats pork, no matter what their income
level is," said Feng.
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Sichuan province, which borders Yunnan, is China's biggest
pig-farming region, slaughtering 69 million pigs in 2016, according
to official data. The Guangxi region, also next to Yunnan, produced
33 million pigs in 2016 and has expanded output.
People in Sichuan eat 68 kg (150 pounds) of pork per person per
year, according to research by Rabobank. That compares with just 20
kg in Shanxi province in northern China.
If China bans the transport of pigs from Yunnan and its neighboring
provinces, as it has after outbreaks in the northern provinces,
supplies in the south will likely plummet.
Transport restrictions would be the "worst scenario", said
Rabbobank's Pan, noting that Guangxi is a key supplier to Guangdong,
China's most populous province.
Beijing has still not said how the disease first entered the
country.
With only a few months until the peak pork consumption period of the
Lunar New Year holiday, China's agriculture ministry warned on
Friday that pig prices will rise ahead of the festival because of
the outbreak.
Because of the pig transport bans, supply trapped in the north
cannot meet the demand in the south, causing distortions in prices.
The price of a pig in eastern Zhejiang province rose to 20 yuan
($2.88) per kg earlier this month while in Liaoning prices dropped
to 10 yuan per kg.
Prices in Yunnan fell 0.3 yuan on Monday to 14.7 yuan per kg,
according to data gathered by China-America Commodity Data Analytics
Inc.
($1 = 6.9350 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Hallie Gu, Dominique Patton and Beijing Monitoring
Desk; Editing by Richard Pullin and Christian Schmollinger)
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