Pork prices fall for 22 consecutive weeks

Pork prices fell for 22 consecutive weeks——

Pig breeding enterprises reduce losses and stabilize production to cope with the changing situation

Our reporter Huang Junyi

Since the beginning of this year, domestic pork prices have fallen for 22 consecutive weeks, causing serious losses for the whole industry. Under the new situation, how to stabilize pig production and effectively avoid market risk?

The losses are still expanding

The Ministry of agriculture and rural areas monitored 500 markets in China, and the average price of live pigs was 13.76 yuan / kg in the fourth week of June. From 36.01 yuan / kg in the third week of January, it has dropped for 22 consecutive weeks, with a cumulative decline of 62%. In the fourth week of June, the national pork price was 24.60 yuan / kg, down 29.62 yuan / kg from the third week of January, with a cumulative decrease of 54.6%.

"The number of live pigs sold, live weight sold and pork imports continued to increase, combined with the continuous release of commercial frozen products on the market and the low consumption of fresh meat, which made the price of pigs continue to fall." Zhu zengyong, a researcher at Beijing Institute of animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, summed up the reasons for the deep drop in pig prices.

From the supply point of view, the current national pork supply is very abundant. Data show that from January to may, the number of live pigs slaughtered by designated slaughtering enterprises in China increased by 40.4% year on year. From January to may, pork imports were 1.96 million tons, up 13.7% year on year. Imports of beef, mutton and poultry also increased by 18.6%, 22.4% and 13% respectively.

"The main reason why pork prices continue to drop is that there were too many pigs in the past. At present, the single weight of white pigs on the market is generally large, and about 70% of them weigh more than 90 kg / head. These white pigs are basically delayed for a month or two before the slaughter, pressure hurdle time is too long. In other words, the White pigs on the market now are basically the hairy pigs that should have been on the market a month or two ago. " Beijing Xinfadi agricultural products wholesale market statistics manager Liu Tong said.

Liu Tong told reporters that the phenomenon of large white pigs accounted for too much began before the Spring Festival and has lasted for several months. It is estimated that there will be another one or two months, and the super large pigs will not be able to digest completely.

How about the profit and loss of the farmers? It is understood that at present, the average breeding cost per kilogram of self breeding farmers is about 17 yuan, and that of purchased piglets farmers is about 26 yuan to 27 yuan.

According to Zhu zengyong's investigation, the profit of 120 kg commercial pigs from self breeding and self rearing was about 200 yuan to 300 yuan in May, and the loss began in early June, ranging from 100 yuan to 200 yuan. The loss expanded to 350 yuan in mid June. The pig farmers began to lose money in March. At the end of May, each pig lost about 1000 yuan. In the middle of June, the loss reached more than 1400 yuan.

Reduce losses by hedging

The price of pigs has fallen below the breeding cost, but the farmers still have ways to minimize the losses. This method is to participate in pig futures trading.

At the beginning of this year, China's first live delivery futures, pig futures, was officially listed on the Dalian Commodity Exchange. Although the pig futures will not directly affect the domestic pig supply and demand fundamentals, futures hedging provides a channel for enterprises in the breeding, slaughtering, trade and other industrial chains to avoid price risk and maintain and increase value.

The so-called futures hedging is that the operator uses the futures contract as a temporary substitute to buy and sell commodities in the spot market in the future, carries out the trading operation in advance, locks the price in advance, so as to avoid the risk of large fluctuations in the market price.

Pig breeding cycle is relatively long, from sow pregnancy to piglets grow out of the market, generally takes about 10 months. In the long breeding cycle, there are uncertainties in many aspects, such as epidemic disease, supply and demand, feed price, etc., which may lead to a significant deviation from the expected price of live pigs when they are sold in the future. With the tool of pig futures, when the price of pig futures is moderate, breeding enterprises can sell pig futures equal to their future sales in the futures market, and lock in profits in advance.

Corresponding to the continuous decline of spot price, since the end of February this year, domestic pig futures prices have also continued to fall deeply. However, since its formal listing in early January, the price of the main contract of pig futures has been above 25000 yuan / ton for four months, even hovering around 30000 yuan / ton. According to the price of 25000 yuan / ton, if the pig breeding enterprises sell the pig futures in time and lock in the profit ahead of time, the benefit is still considerable.

On June 24, Jin Xinnong, a leading pig breeding enterprise, announced that since the pig futures were first listed on the Dalian Commodity Exchange, the company has gradually established positions in pig futures hedging contracts. As of June 23, it has actively closed all the pig futures contracts it holds. According to the preliminary calculation, since the first quarter of this year, jinxinnong's pig futures hedging business has made a profit of 108.9273 million yuan.

At present, pig futures and spot prices have fallen below the breeding cost. According to the law of fluctuation over the years, pig prices may rebound seasonally after July, and breeding enterprises can make corresponding layout.

Speed up industrial upgrading

With the successful recovery of domestic pig production capacity, the decline in pig prices has objectively forced the industry to accelerate the pace of transformation and upgrading.

After the outbreak of swine plague in Africa, due to the serious shortage of sows, large and medium-sized breeding enterprises widely used the method of recurrent hybridization to produce parent sows. At present, it is time to speed up the elimination of backward production capacity and replace it with binary sows with higher production capacity.

"Technological innovation is the driving force of industrial development. The problem of pig neck sticking is prominent in China. In the long run, China's pig seed industry is attached to the big plate of industry, which is difficult to reflect the guiding ideology of "seed first" of agriculture, and the enthusiasm of independent cultivation of enterprises is weak. The small scale of the top core breeding system and the independent and decentralized supply mode of breeding pigs lead to the failure to form the independent scientific and technological innovation ability of seed industry. The disease continues to impact the pig seed industry, and the collectivized and specialized seed companies are still in the initial stage. " Zhu zengyong said.

In view of the outstanding problems faced by the sustainable development of the pig industry and the technical problems in the main links of the pig industry chain, the industry should strengthen the collaborative innovation from the aspects of variety resource protection and core population cultivation, nutrition and feed, intelligent breeding facilities and equipment, pig disease prevention and control, waste harmless treatment and resource utilization, slaughtering and processing.

Zhu zengyong said that China is rich in pig germplasm resources, but the utilization rate is low. It is hoped that in the future, with the protection and utilization of local pig resources, the improvement of scientific and technological innovation ability of seed industry, the continuous improvement of research enterprise cooperation mechanism, and the accelerated development of group breeding, China's pig self-sufficiency rate can be significantly improved.

"At present, the price of pigs is falling, so the farms should not panic. It should be recognized that with the recovery of pig production capacity, the decline of pig prices is an inevitable trend. At the same time, pig prices will not fall all the time. With the digestion of big pigs in the market, pig prices will still rebound seasonally. Farmers should continue to do a good job in the prevention and control of African swine fever and other major diseases, so as not to miss the recovery of pig prices. " Zhu zengyong said.