CHINA – Higher Pork Prices Fuel Inflation – June 16, 2011

CHINA – Rising pork prices since May are fuelling concerns about consumer price inflation.

Since early May, pork prices in China have kept rising mainly due to the cyclical live-pig supply shortage and higher costs for pig feed caused by rising grain prices, according to official sources.

“My family has to add around 130 yuan (CNY; US$20) extra to the monthly budget due to rising food prices, especially pork,” said Zhang Liang, a resident in Jinan, capital of east Shangdong Province.

All across the country, pork prices have soared in recent months.

Pork is the most widely consumed and affordable meat in China, and its price weighs heavily on the consumer prices index (CPI).

Statistics from the China Animal Agriculture Association (CAAA) show that in 2009, pork accounted for 65 per cent of the meat consumed by Chinese.

China still faces upward pressure on prices in the near future, said Sheng Laiyun, a spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), at a press conference earlier this week.

According to the new figures published by the NBS, China’s CPI, the main gauge of inflation, rose 5.5 per cent year-on-year in May, 0.2 percentage points higher than in April and hitting a 34-month high.

Sheng said that the rising CPI is due to the rises in food prices – pork and egg prices in particular.

“The price of live pigs was CNY18.8 per kilogram recently, surpassing the historical high in 2008,” said Zhang Jianming, a farmer with 4,000 pigs in the city of Dongying in Shangdong.

A string of upsurges has been seen in China’s pork market since early June 2010. During the past four weeks, pork prices have been surging to their highest level since 2008, according to Xinhua’s statistical data.

Analysts with the Shandong provincial livestock information centre suggest that high pig feed prices caused by rising grain prices are partly to blame.

Feng Yonghui, an expert with ZhongKeYiHeng, an institute of agriculture information and technology in Beijing, said the recent price of live pigs is about CNY17.52 per kilogram with an year-on-year increase of about 87 per cent, while average pork prices have reached CNY26.97 per kilogram, an increase of around 79 per cent.

However, pig farmers say they are hesitant about increasing their pig numbers.

“Although we can gain about CNY600 from a live pig, no one wants to take the risk of raising more pigs since the market is unstable,” said Wang Shoujing, a pig farmer from Tancheng County in the city of Linyi in Shangdong. “Besides, the cost of the piglets is also high,” he added.

Last year’s pig epidemics are also partly to blame for the inefficient supply of live pigs.

“A total of 1,000 pigs died from swine fever on my farm,” Wang said.

A shortage of pigs and rising feed prices will remain as problems in the short term, and pork prices will probably remain high for sometime, Feng said.

The entire live pigs supply cycle needs about 12 months, thus the supply shortage will linger for a while, Feng explained.

Yao Minpu, director of the Swine Industry Association of the CAAA, believes that corn prices will keep rising, which may also boost pork prices since corn is the main feed for pigs.

Li Tiegang, a professor with School of Economics of Shandong University, said: “Pork prices account for a large proportion of China’s food prices, which take up to 30 per cent of the CPI, so high pork prices will definitely lift the CPI.”

Li Mingliang, an analyst at Haitong Securities, added: “An increase of 20 per cent in pork prices will drive up the CPI by 0.6 percentage points.”

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CHINA – Antibiotic misuse in China underestimated – 19 Apr 2011

Antibiotics added to the feed of livestock to increase productivity are not just limited to clenbuterol, and authorities are largely blind to such adulteration, according to an industry insider.

A scandal uncovered last month involved pork produced by Shuanghui Group, China’s largest meat producer, which was tainted with clenbuterol, which had been added to pig feed.

“In 2006, of 210,000 tons of antibiotics produced in China, 97,000 tons were directly used in livestock feed,” said professor Xiao Yonghong, head of the National Antimicrobial Resistant Investigation Net under the Ministry of Health.

Xiao said that the misuse of antibiotics can be disastrously detrimental to a wide range of people.

Clenbuterol detainees

Chinese police have detained 95 people in connection with the clenbuterol case involving a subsidiary of China’s largest meat producer Shuanghui Group.

Police have closed their investigations after having taken 95 people into custody between March 14 and 29 in the central provinces of Hubei, Henan, Shaanxi and Jiangsu, it said.

The scandal reportedly cost the company more than 12.1 billion yuan (about $1.85 billion) in just the two weeks after it was exposed by China Central Television on March 15.

Pork is the most popular meat in China, where each year more than 600 million pigs are slaughtered, according to Xinhua.

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CHINA – Who Can Guarantee China’s Pork is Safe? –

CHINA – Detection of the toxic additive clenbuterol in pig feed has once again undermined Chinese consumers’ confidence in the country’s food producers.

The Chinese government is serious about the scandal. The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) announced that it will cooperate with eight ministries and commissions to launch a one-year crackdown on illegal additives in pig feed which have proven to be toxic to humans.

In big cities, like Chengdu and Nanjing, contaminated products from the food company suspected to be involved in the scandal have been soon moved off the shelves in supermarkets.

Some provinces have ordered that slaughterhouses should check their products everyday to avoid unsafe meat to be sold to the public.

Wan Long, Chief Executive Officer with the Henan-based Shuanghui Group, China’s largest meat producer involved in the clenbuterol event, apologized last week.

Wan admitted the company’s mistake and disclosed at a meeting that the scandal had so far cost the company more than 12.1 billion yuan (about US$1.85 billion).

The government hopes that all these efforts would produce some results in saving consumers’ confidence.

Pork is the most popular meat in China. Each year more than 600 million pigs are harvested, according to Wang Zongli, vice director of the husbandry office in the Ministry of Agriculture.

Statistics from the China Animal Agriculture Association (CAAA) show that in 2009, pork accounted for 65 percent of the meat consumed by Chinese.

Clenbuterol, a poisonous chemical that can reduce a pig’s body fat to produce lean meat, was found in meat products from Jiyuan Shuanghui Food Co., Ltd last month.

Experts said that the chemical is very harmful to people’s health, as it might cause cancer and other diseases.

Li Peitang from Dayi County of southwest China’s Sichuan Province has been raising pigs for more than 10 years, and now owns a pig farm with 3,000 hogs, making 1 to 2 million yuan a year.

Clenbuterol is very cheap and using it can reduce a pig’s fat by 10 per cent, Li says.

“Lean pork fetches 1.6 yuan higher per kilogram than fattier cuts,” he said.

“The scandal will hit the meat industry hard,” said Qiao Yufeng, vice chairman of the CAAA.

In 2008, melamine-tainted milk powder killed at least six infants and sickened 300,000 across the country, which deeply eroded consumers’ faith in the integrity of China’s dairy industry.

Experts and many ordinary Chinese have pinned their hope on stepped government monitoring and revised regulations to ensure safe production of food in the country.

A netizen nicknamed sdcharles has blogged, “Where have all the people in charge of supervision gone? Only after the problem has come to light do they start doing something. Why shouldn’t they all be fired?”

While Zheng Fengtian, a professor with the the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at Renmin University of China said, “It’s ridiculous that Shuanghui didn’t check for loopholes in supervision. Rather, it talked about feeding pigs. Is it shifting public attention?”

Professor Zheng believes that the widespread use of clenbuterol is just one of many problems with the country’s meat industry. “Antibiotics are fed to pigs to stop them from getting sick, while growth hormones are added to quicken their growth.”

According to a central government circular issued last October, various governmental departments were given specific responsibilities to strengthen monitoring and regulations to stop clenbuterol and other toxic substances being used in meat production.

However, Qiao Yufeng notes that the departments might shift their responsibilities so they can escape blame should something bad arise.

Professor Zheng suggests tightening supervision at the last stage in the supply chain before the products reach the market.

“Disqualified products have no market. This will force producers to behave,” he said.

While Li Peitang, the farmer, said that most of the problems concerning meat quality existed at the feeding stage.

“We should ensure the safety of feed so as to tackle the problems from the beginning.”

Mr Qiao said that the general public and mass media could play an important role in supervision. “They have always been the whistle-blowers. It is a strong force for social supervision.”

Meanwhile, Shao Yunkai, a media officer with the Consumers’ Association in Heilongjiang Province, cautioned consumers to be sensible.

“With the improvement of people’s living standard, consumers paid more attention to health,” he said. Lean pork with less fat was considered to more healthy.’However, he said, “fat meat has its nutrition as well, and blindness of consumers in their choices might give opportunity to the immoral producers.”

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CHINA – Chinese Crackdown on Contaminated Pig Feed – March 29, 2011

CHINA – China’s Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) said yesterday, 28 March, that the government would launch a one-year crackdown on illegal additives in pig feed which have proven to be toxic to humans.

The announcement came after a subsidiary of Shuanghui Group, China’s largest meat producer, was exposed this month for using clenbuterol-contaminated pork in its meat products.

The campaign would also involve the Food Safety Commission Office under the State Council, or Cabinet, as well as ministries of information and technology, public security, commerce, and health, along with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, and the State Food and Drug Administration.

The illegal production, selling and use of clenbuterol, a fat-burning chemical, would be severely punished, and measures would be taken to block clenbuterol-tainted pork from entering the market, according to the MOA.

The campaign would also focus on the monitoring of pig-raising and other steps in pork supply chains, such as purchasing and slaughtering, to ensure safety of pork products.

A total of 72 people in central Henan province, where Shuanghui is based, have been taken into police custody for allegedly producing, selling or using clenbuterol, Henan provincial government said in a statement on Monday.

About 18 tons of pig feed that were suspected of having clenbuterol were confiscated by the authorities during a province-wide check that lasted from 15 to 23 March, said the statement.

Henan’s supervision authorities also investigated 53 officials and government workers for alleged dereliction of duty, said the statement.

Clenbuterol is fed to pigs to stop them from accumulating fat. It is banned as pig feed in China because it is poisonous to humans, if ingested.

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CHINA – China Orders Crackdown on Illegal Meat Additive – Tuesday, March 22, 2011

CHINA – A Chinese central government taskforce has ordered Henan’s local authorities to crack down on illegal production and use of clenbuterol, a chemical poisonous to humans.

Traces of clenbuterol have been found in pigs and the practice of adding the chemical to pig food is believed to be widespread in the province, said the taskforce spokesman from the Food Safety Commission Office under the State Council, the cabinet.

Those who deliberately add substances harmful to humans to pig food should be severely punished, said the spokesman who declined to give his name.

Local food safety officers who were negligent in their duties or involved in conspiring with illegal additive producers or pig farmers should also be punished in accordance with the law, the spokesman added.

The taskforce is made up of members from the commission as well as from the ministries of public security, supervision, agriculture, commerce and health, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

The taskforce carried out on-site examinations at local pig farms and slaughterhouses after they arrived in Henan on Sunday.

A subsidiary of China’s largest meat processor Shuanghui Group was exposed last week for using clenbuterol-contaminated pork in its meat products.

Clenbuterol is fed to pigs to stop them accumulating fat. It is banned in pig feed in China because it is poisonous to humans if ingested.

The Henan provincial government said in a statement it had started a new round of inspections that would be focused on other additives such as ractopamine and salbutamol, which were used as alternatives to clenbuterol but were neglected in the first round of inspections.

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GLOBAL – BPEX: Feed crisis pack 24 Mar 2011

The biggest and most important single cost for pig producers is feed; on average it accounts for almost 60% of total production costs.

It is no exaggeration to state that global rises in the price of feed are the biggest threat to the sustainability of English high welfare pig production and processing.

Wheat is the main ingredient of pig feed and its price is keenly observed by the whole of the pig industry. The market for wheat has been very volatile in recent years with huge price rises brought about by poor harvests and a growing demand, not least for the production of bio fuels. Prices of other key ingredients, such as soya, have also increased.

The price of wheat has risen sharply to more than £170 per tonne – its highest level since April 2008. There is no sign of any respite; the futures market indicates that this high price is set to continue well into 2011. The consequences for English pig producers: a 20% increase in feed costs – that’s an extra 14% on total production costs.

The documents below discuss a range of ways for making efficiencies and reducing feed waste through the weaner and finisher stages to secure the best net margin you can.

Click here:for more info.

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