Pork prices to stay 'unusually high' as China buys
Hog prices are set to remain elevated, and retail pork values "unusually high", thanks to a slide-off in production at a time when demand is being stoked by China, whose own prices have hit record highs.
The US Department of Agriculture warned that expansion throughout the domestic livestock industry was "tenuous", with high grain prices to force a year-on-year drop in broiler production in the second half of 2011, while drought in the South prompts cattle farmers to slaughter cows they had earmarked for breeding from.
"The high rate of cow slaughter will likely limit calf crops for at least this year and next," USDA analyst Rachel Johnson said.
However, she highlighted in particular the squeeze facing the hog and pork markets as a fall-off in output expected to accelerate into a year-on-year decline in the October-to-December quarter, thanks to lighter animals.
'Important outlet'
"While the spring pig crop points to slightly higher fourth-quarter slaughter, dressed weights will likely average below 2010 levels, which were achieved when a combination of corn quality and optimal feeding weather boosted weight gains," Ms Johnson said.
Meanwhile, demand will boosted by exports expected to rise by 12% in the second half of 2011, fuelled by demand from China, the biggest pork consumer.
Since the lifting last year of trade restrictions on US pork, imposed following the swine flu, or H1N1, scare, "China has developed a pattern of consistent purchases of important quantities of US pork products", often ranking in weekly export data in the top five destinations for shipments.
China, already "becoming an important outlet for US pork products", was likely to see its "evolution as an export destination for US pork products?continue to evolve".
The impact in the US meant that "continued year-over-year higher hog prices and unusually high retail pork prices are the most likely outcome for second-half 2011", Ms Johnson said.
'Extreme heat'
The comments come a week after Chinese inflation data showed pork prices soaring 57% year on year, as demand for the meat in a country responsible for half world consumption far outstripped domestic supplies.
The US Meat Export Federation, an industry group, said that US pork exports to China so far this year were, at 99,400 tonnes, "comparable in volume to the record pace of 2008", besides being worth more than $150m.
Meanwhile, US Commodities also highlighted the prospect of a fall-off in hog weights, noting that they had been behind year-ago levels for seven successive weeks.
"The extreme heat in the US will help keep weights below 2010. This will offset the larger slaughter [numbers]," the Iowa-based broker said.
However, lean hogs for August delivery fell 1.5% to 97.45 cents a pound on Monday, a weak day for many commodities and other assets deemed riskier investments.
Belly flops
*Monday also brought the delisting of pork belly futures, made famous by the film Trading Places, which the CME Group scrapped following a drop in investor interest.
Trading volumes in Chicago's near-term contract had totalled two lots, both on January 25, so far this year.
"The frozen pork belly contract was no longer seen by end users as an effective hedging instrument, particularly given the shift towards using more frozen bacon," a report from Steve Meyer and Len Steiner, for the CME Group, said.
"Also, the seasonality of pork belly prices no longer is what it used to be, with bacon becoming a staple of foodservice menus year round."
This meant a gap in contracts between August and February was "insufficient to meet the industry's hedging needs".
June 21, 2011
The price of pork, a staple of the Chinese diet, hit a new high in China in June due to rising costs and short supply.
The price of pork, a staple of the Chinese diet, hit a new high in China this month due to rising costs and short supply, state media said today, amid persistent concerns about soaring inflation.
Pork cost 27.67 yuan ($4.30) a kilo last week, surpassing the previous peak of 26 yuan set in 2008, the China Daily reported. The cost of live pigs also surged to 18.57 yuan a kilo at the end of last week, beating the previous record high of 17.20 yuan reached in April 2008.
The price of corn, which accounts for around 60% of pig feed, hit a record high in March, sending pig and pork prices skyrocketing in the following months, according to economists.
They warned that price increases in pork, which accounted for 65% of China's meat consumption, risked sending the costs of grains and vegetables up as consumers seek alternatives to meat, the report said.
The government could try to curb pork price rises by freeing up supply reserves, a spokesman said. However, the effects could be limited given a general supply shortage after pig farmers slaughtered breeding stock last year due to low prices and diseases, he said.
Beijing has listed containing price rises, which have triggered bouts of unrest around the country, as the government's top priority this year. The consumer price index jumped to 5.5% year on year in May - the highest since July 2008 and far above the official annual target of 4% - as food costs soared on power shortages and droughts in some areas.
May 19, 2010
Foot and mouth disease hits Japan.
Workers wearing protective gears disperse disinfectant at a pig pen after a suspicious case of foot-and-mouth disease was found in Kawanami town in Miyazaki prefecture, southern Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama admitted fault Tuesday in the government's efforts to contain a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, which is crippling farmers in a southern prefecture known for its prized beef.
JAPAN'S prime minister acknowledged on Tuesday that the government was not doing enough to contain a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in a southern prefecture that has crippled farmers growing prized beef and prompted its governor to declare a crisis.
Authorities have destroyed more than 114,000 animals - 8,600 cows and 105,500 pigs - since they detected the disease in Miyazaki last month.
"We've reached a situation where we are unable to stop (the outbreak) from spreading," Miyazaki Governor Hideo Higashikokubaru said. He declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, calling the outbreak "serious."
He said the disease could spread to neighbouring prefectures or even across the country, and urged residents to avoid unnecessary contacts between farms and ensure sterilisation.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's government has been criticised for being too slow to respond since the first sick cow was found in Miyazaki on the southern main island of Kyushu - Japan's first since 2000. It led to the suspension of beef exports for at least three months.
Hatoyama acknowledged on Tuesday the government should have acted sooner to contain the rapidly spreading outbreak.
"I think there are certain problems in terms of having done everything we could to prevent the expansion," Hatoyama told reporters. He vowed Tokyo would do its utmost, including giving financial assistance to affected farmers.
Foot-and-mouth disease is often fatal for cloven-hoofed animals including cows, sheep, pigs and goats, causing blisters on the mouth and feet. It does not affect humans.
The government has set up an emergency task force and is considering spending 100 billion yen ($A1.25 billion) for preventive steps and financial support for affected farmers.
Miyazaki's beef industry produces "wagyu" cattle, which are world-famous for intricate marbling, tenderness and high prices.
The Miyazaki Livestock Improvement Association, which manages the breeding bulls for the Miyazaki brand of cattle, has evacuated its six most important bulls which produce nearly all of the semen sold to farmers for artificial insemination. Testing has shown that the six bulls are not infected.
Shoji Haneda, president of the central Miyazaki branch of Japan Agricultural Cooperatives, has estimated that local farmers would lose 16 billion yen($A197 million) because of the outbreak. Reports said economic losses could amount to 25 billion yen($A307.5 million)).
Japan exported 565 tonnes of beef worth $US40 million ($A45.58 million) during the last fiscal year, mostly to Vietnam, Hong Kong and the US, according to the agriculture ministry.
In South Korea, authorities have slaughtered thousands of cows since January in its first outbreak of the foot-and-mouth disease in eight years.
May 18, 2010
Japan's Miyazaki Declares Emergency on Foot-and-Mouth (Update2)
May 18 (Bloomberg) -- Japan ordered more than 1 percent of its swine herd to be slaughtered after Miyazaki prefecture, the nation’s second-biggest growing region, declared a “state of emergency” as an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease spreads.
A total of 105,519 pigs and 8,612 beef cattle and dairy cows will be killed in the prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu, said Takehisa Yamamoto, an official at the animal health division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. That’s a 42 percent increase in the past four days.
Foot-and-mouth is one of the most contagious livestock diseases and can have high mortality rates in young animals, according to the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health, or OIE. The cull is more than 100 times larger than during Japan’s last outbreak in 2000. Miyazaki Governor Hideo Higashikokubaru declared an emergency today as they have failed to stop the disease from spreading.
“We would like to ask residents living in the affected areas to stay home” unless they have urgent reasons to go out, Higashikokubaru was quoted by spokesman Tomofumi Yagoshi as telling reporters today. The request is aimed at containment as the possibility the disease may spread “across Kyushu island, or nationwide,” cannot be ruled out, he said.
Affected Communities
Suspected cases of foot-and-mouth were found yesterday in cows in Shintomi town, raising the number of affected communities in the prefecture to five from four, Yamamoto at the agriculture ministry said. Shintomi is located about 10 kilometers south of Kawaminami town, where most cases of the disease were discovered.
Japan’s previous foot-and-mouth outbreak occurred in 2000, when 740 animals were killed in Miyazaki and on the northern island of Hokkaido.
“It is difficult to determine how the disease is being transmitted,” Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told reporters today. “The most important thing is that the government will take all possible measures to prevent the disease from spreading further.”
Hatoyama has set up a cabinet team to deal with the problem as opposition parties’ criticism of Agriculture Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu’s handling of the issue intensifies before the nation’s upper-house election planned for July.
Rebuilding Business
The Agricultural Ministry’s Animal Diseases Experts committee recommended today that the government vaccinate animals against the disease to prevent it spreading further.
Japan has enough reserves of the vaccine to inoculate 700,000 animals, Nobuyuki Terakado, deputy chairman of the committee, said at a briefing today.
The government may spend as much as 20 billion yen ($216 million) on measures to prevent the spread of the disease and to help affected farmers rebuild their businesses, the Nikkei newspaper reported today, citing an unidentified person in the Ministry of Finance.
To contain the disease, Japan has restricted animal movements and is killing all stock at farms with suspected cases and disinfecting the properties. The first case was reported on April 20.
Miyazaki is Japan’s second-largest pig-farming region, accounting for about 9.2 percent of the nation’s herd, which was estimated by the agriculture ministry at 9.9 million as of Feb. 1, 2009. The prefecture is also the third-biggest beef cattle grower, accounting for 10 percent of the country’s total herd of 2.9 million.
The foot-and-mouth virus found in Miyazaki is similar to the type discovered in South Korea, according to the ministry.
In South Korea, the farm ministry said April 22 that two cases were found at a pig farm in Chungju, south of Seoul, indicating the virus had spread inland. A new outbreak was discovered on April 9 on Ganghwa island, less than a month after the nation declared itself free of the disease.
China in March reported an outbreak of the disease in pigs.
--Editor: Matthew Oakley.
To contact the reporters on this story: Aya Takada in Tokyo at atakada2@bloomberg.net Takashi Hirokawa in Tokyo at thirokawa@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net
April 29, 2010
Outbreaks of Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Japan Includes Cows and Pigs
Japan has discovered suspected cases of foot-and-mouth disease in pigs at a farm in Miyazaki prefecture, where the government confirmed the first outbreak since 2000 in cows last week.
Five pigs at the farm were found to be infected with foot-and-mouth disease according to initial test results, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said in a statement Wednesday. All 486 pigs at the farm are being culled, it said. The latest findings bring the tally of suspected infections to 10 and will result in the slaughter of about 2,900 cows and pigs in total in an effort to prevent the disease from spreading, the Miyazaki Prefecture Government said.
The foot-and-mouth virus is one of the most contagious animal diseases and can have high mortality rates in young animals, according to the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). Eating infected meat doesn’t harm humans. To contain the disease, the Japanese Government has limited transportation of animals in the region, killing them at farms where suspected cases were discovered and disinfecting the area. Miyazaki is on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu.
Japan’s last outbreak of the disease was in 2000, when the country slaughtered 740 cattle, according to Katsumi Yorita, deputy director at the ministry’s livestock industry policy planning division. In April 2000, Souichi Kagawa, then executive director of the Japan Livestock Industry Association, said Japan’s first outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 92 years had been contained and caused little damage to the country’s 500 billion yen (4.8 billion USD) domestic beef industry.
In South Korea, the farm ministry said April 22 that two cases were found at a pig farm in Chungju, south of Seoul, indicating the virus has spread inland. A new outbreak was discovered on April 9 on Ganghwa Island, less than a month after the nation declared itself free of the disease. China in March reported an outbreak of the disease in pigs.
March 2nd, 2009
See you in 2009 HK APLF
Ding Iun Leather Co., Ltd has made a breakthrough on pig skin leather. We will display chrome-free pig grain lining, pig split, pig nubuck and eco friendly leather materials at 2009 HK APLF (HALL 1, 1F01)-MATERIALS, MANUFACTURING AND TECHNOLOGY 2009 during Mar 31~Apr 2nd, 2009. See you there.
Nov. 17 2008
DA Warns of Higher Pork Prices Despite Sufficiency
According to Balita.org, the DA's regional executive director Larry Nacionales said the price increase is a normal trend that can be felt by consumers up to the first quarter of 2009.
Nacionales said the DA has actually completed its piglet restocking project last month where farmers were given piglets for growing to pre-empt any possible shortage.
Nacionales said live production of swine in the region is huge but processed meats are being supplied outside of the region.
Before typhoon Frank, he said that some 12,000 head of swine were shipped outside of Western Visayas every month. "We have no problems when it comes to supplies of pork products. We have an inter-regional marketing channel where we can access these products in other regions in case of shortage, likewise we provide them with these commodities should they are in need of the same products," he explained.
Nov.06 2008
Economic Crisis Impacting Exports
Limited credit availability, volatile currency exchange rates and global economic uncertainty will create an uphill climb for US beef and pork exports in many foreign markets for the remainder of the year. This was common theme provided by directors of the USMEF international offices at the USMEF Strategic Planning Conference in Tucson, Arizona. Despite these obstacles, however, both products have performed extremely well in 2008, and are well-positioned for continued long-term strength.
"We're extremely pleased with the way beef and pork exports performed in the first eight months of the year," said USMEF President and CEO, Philip Seng. "But the financial crisis that has plagued us in the past six weeks has obviously had a major impact, and so our members are very interested in hearing first-hand reports from each of the key regions."
October 03 2008
Beware Winter's Draughts!
With winter fast approaching, Paul Thompson, veterinary consultant to pig-breeding company, ACMC Ltd, advises producers to check the lying patterns of their pigs and, over the seasonal transition period when temperatures drop, to check and adjust ventilation flaps on a daily basis.
While a maximum-minimum thermometer gives an idea of temperature fluctuation, it is the behaviour of the pigs which indicates how they actually feel, regardless of the arbitrary temperature. In addition, cold pigs eat more feed to keep warm, he points out.
April 10,2008
Food Safety for Olympic Sailors
"The food project for the Olympics in Qingdao guarantees food safety for the event and treats sailors and tourists to diverse, delicious food," said Jiang Jing, deputy secretary-general of Qingdao Sailing Committee.The city government began preparation and adopted a series of measures through close inspection of hygiene and supervised agricultural and aquaculture sites. in 2004 to ensure food quality.Local farmers have been encouraged to adopt new farming techniques, develop organic agriculture and use advanced testing for pesticide residue, heavy metals and microbes. Over the past two years, the authorities have taken 623,100 vegetable and 51,000 pork samples. Some 79,900 kg vegetables were destroyed because they had excess levels of pesticides.The authorities have also been clamping down on illegal food producers and 2,700 have been put out of business since 2004.
(The news is solely for information purpose only. )
