A campaign to contain African swine fever outbreaks in China has caused hog prices to surge rapidly in a matter of days, a commodity expert said on Wednesday.
The comments came as the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs reported on Wednesday a fresh case, the ninth outbreak of the disease, at a farm in a suburb of Jiamusi in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.
Feng Yonghui, chief analyst at hog market information provider soozhu.com, told the Global Times on Wednesday that a campaign started by the ministry on August 31 to curb the disease has frozen cross-province transportation of hogs in China, disrupting its supply chain and causing prices to soar.
"China's northern areas, particularly the northeast, produce hogs, which are transported to southern consumption regions," Feng said. "With the transportation of hogs halted, prices began to soar in the past five days," he added.
Prices in East China's Zhejiang, for example, have risen to 16 yuan ($2.34) per kilogram in a matter of two or three days from around 14 yuan, Feng noted, citing data acquired by his firm.
Hog prices have been continuously rising in the past five days, Feng said.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics, which slightly lags market price movements, showed average hog prices at 13.7 yuan per kilogram from August 21-30. The price fell 2.8 percent over the previous period, which was from August 11-20.
The transportation ban has caused hog prices in northern China, a major production area already afflicted with overcapacity, to fall drastically since Friday. But price hikes from southern China are also spreading toward northern China, Feng said.
But higher pork prices have little impact on inflation, as the disease has affected only a tiny fraction of China's hog production capacity, which is 700 million a year, Feng said.
