This Should Make Some Iowa Farmers Very, Very Happy -- April 4, 2019

Updates

April 20, 2019: from CNN -- data points --

• China's production has fallen 10% this year (in line with original post in which production was anticipated to drop to 51 million tonnes from 55 million tonnes)
• China normally accounts for 49% of global pork consumption
• apparently in the US, wholesale prices have risen, but retail prices have remained stable (yes, lots of competition in the US at the retail level; and, many alternatives to chicken)
• from the linked article, last year (2018):
• China produced 54.8 million metric tones of pork
• consumed nearly 60 million metric tons
• the delta (consumed/produced) not particularly remarkable

I remain unconvinced that we will see much impact in the US for the average Costco shopper.

Original Post

Quick: what country consumes the most pork? Oh, that's too easy. Let's start with this. On a per capita basis which country consumes the most pork. LOL. If you get the correct answer without looking it up, you either raise hogs or you need to get a life. The answer is here. Per capita, the US is only #8.

This I find most amazing. Think about it. China is #4. That's per capita. And there are a  lot of "per capita" Chinese. Like a billion or so.

So, now back to the original question: what country consumes the most pork? See this Reuters article from 2017.

China still consumes a lot more meat than any other country. People here will eat about 74 million tonnes of pork, beef and poultry this year, around twice as much as the United States, according to U.S. agriculture department estimates. More than half of that is pork and for foreign producers it has been a big growth market, especially for Western-style packaged meats.

China produces a lot of their own pork.

But, just saying ...

Just saying ...

What would happen if "swine flu" were to hit China?

Well, apparently it did. The article was sent to me by a reader -- again, from Reuters -- China's pork imports to double in 2019 as swine fever hits local output. 

I don't know what you think, but I think this is a huge, huge deal.

China’s 2019 pork imports are set to double from last year to 2 million tonnes, a Rabobank analyst said on Thursday, as African swine fever hits production of the meat in the world’s top hog market.  

China has reported 113 outbreaks of the contagious disease since last August, though farmers and industry insiders say several outbreaks are going unreported.

African swine fever, which does not harm humans, has a high mortality rate in pigs and has no vaccine or cure.

Chinese pork production will fall by up to 20 percent in 2019. China typically accounts for around half the world’s output of the meat.

That means local production this year of between 50 million and 51 million tonnes, Tjakra told Reuters on the sidelines of the event, down from last year’s 54 million to 55 million tonnes. 

It appears the headline is a bigger bark than the actual bite -- Chinese production will go from 55 million tonnes to 50 million tonnes (at worse).

Iowa should easily make up the shortfall.

It's a good thing Chinese-Trump trade talks appear to be coming to an end.