China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs recently stated that wholesale pork price in the third week of September was up 81 percent from a year earlier. This is much stronger than the 47-percent rise reported recently by the National Bureau of Statistics. In a speech to a Dalian corn industry conference in September, a researcher of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences remarked that China's pork industry had experienced an unprecedented loss of production capacity that he estimates to be 20 percent, or 10 million metric tons. He noted that there are a wide range of estimates and the reduction in production capacity varies widely from province to province. The researcher estimated that consumption of pork is down 11-12 percent, due to fears of disease and its high price. During an inspection of farms and slaughterhouses in three provinces in the last week of September, Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua asserted that restoring pork production is a "major and urgent task". Vice Premier Hu Chunhua also issued orders to "manage public opinion" regarding pork supplies given a month ago following which China's news media is crammed with reports about farmers regaining confidence, the government's "good" and "effective" policy measures, and obediently chanting the mantra, "restoring production capacity and stabilizing pork supply." This makes discerning the actual pork supply and demand situation difficult.
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