Dazzling data mark China’s farm future

Massive centralized farm operations are opening up all over the country, replacing millions of small-scale backyard breeders – a shift that has spurred a need for better breeding stock.

 

China produces an estimated 50 million metric tonnes of pork each year and accounts for nearly 55% of global pig production. To avoid price fluctuations, and deal with growing food safety concerns among consumers, the Chinese government is encouraging and investing heavily in a Westernized style of large-scale farming.

 

Below a listing some of the leading players in China’s pork and poultry industry with their latest expansion plans:

 

Major animal feed producer and US-listed company with annual pig production of 600,000 animals in the Jiangxi province this year. Has set up joint venture with Hypor, part of the Hendrix Genetics Company in China. Aiming at boosting its sales to more than 2 million pigs per year.

State-run trading company. Plans to invest 3.5 billion yuan (€421.5m) on 60-million-chicken breeding and slaughtering facilities and swine breeding farms in the southwest province of Sichuan. Has set up a joint venture last year with Mitsubishi Corp to invest $1.5 billion on pig, chicken breeding and processing facilities. Aim is to be the largest pig farmer in China and produce 10-15 million pigs per year by 2015, up from the current annual rate of 1.5 million. Announced plans to invest over 20 billion yuan (€2.4b) to set up three pig farming bases in Tianjin, Jiangsu and Wuhan, with each expected to produce three million pigs annually.

Thailand-based group started construction of a 3.6-billion-yuan (€433m) breeding and slaughtering facility in central Hubei province for annually processing one million pigs. Has also built breeding and slaughtering facilities in Shandong; a one-million pig farm in the central province of Hubei last year; and one-million-pig and 100-million-chicken farms in the southern province of Guangdong.

China’s largest pig breeder. Produced 777 million chickens and 6.64 million pigs in 2011 at its own facilities and through contracts with some 52,000 farmers. Plans building farms for 30 million broilers and 300,000 pigs a year in the central province of Anhui. Plans are in place to build two pig farms in the southwest province of Sichuan, each with 1 million heads and it aims to raise 5-6 million pigs in the country’s northeast provinces.

Major pig breeder and livestock feed producer processed 2.6 million pigs and produced 3.2 million tonnes of livestock feed in 2011. Has access to modern genetics through joint venture with US Whiteshire Hamroc and eventually intends to produce 10 million pigs per year.

China’s top animal feed producer plans to build more pig farms to expand its annual hog production by three million in the next three years.

One of the leading pig breeders in China. Runs more than 20 pig farm operations and aims to be producing six million pigs by the year of 2015. Started breeding and slaughtering facilities last year with 1.5 million pigs a year in the central province of Henan.

One of china’s major pig processors with annual slaughter capacity of more than 30 million pigs. Only processed about one-third of that capacity last year. Currently investing in its own pig production after a tainted-meat scandal in 2011.

A major meat processors with annual pig slaughter capacity of 46 million pigs and aiming to reach 70 million heads per year by 2015.