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U.S. pork market could slow as China rebuilds herd

As China continues to rebuild its hog herd because of losses from African Swine Fever, a livestock economist says growth in the domestic pork market will slow down.

Scott Brown is with the University of Missouri.

“I worry as we get further into 2022, 2023, we’ll be in a situation where the Chinese really don’t a lot of U.S. pork,” he said.

Brown said China consumes about half of the world’s pork supply and it will take a while for Chinese pork production to catch back up with its demand.

But he tells Brownfield when production does catch up, U.S. pork producers will take a hit.

“The growth that we’ve been seeing in trade will filter back to what would be then lower prices for us,” Brown said.

He said although this is the case, there are ‘reasonable’ long-term futures prices available for pork. Brown says it’s hard to predict what will happen within China’s pork market while ASF is still a problem there.