Genesus Global Market Report: South East Asia

Pig price jumps in Thailand.
calendar icon 6 September 2018
clock icon 6 minute read

by Paul Anderson – General Manager South East Asia and International Sales Manager, Genesus Inc.Thailand

Thailand

The price of live pigs in Thailand hit THB 70/kg (USD 2.12) in late August or a 27% jump from the second quarter of the year. The rising price was a result of increasing live pig exports to Cambodia. It was estimated the country took about 5000 pigs/day from Thailand.

Cambodia was facing a shortage of pigs. One reason was a massive mortality in the country’s herd due to outbreaks of PED and PRRS. The other reason was a rapid surge in pork consumption in the middle of Cambodia’s election, which took place in late July. Live exports to Cambodia significantly depleted the stock of pigs in Thailand.

It is estimated that live pig prices in Thailand would remain strong until early next year. The breeding stock in the country was decreasing since the first quarter. At that time, major producers voluntarily cut their breeding stock to curb with gluts and falling live pig prices.

Coupled with impacts from diseases such as FMD and PED together with live pig exports to Cambodia, it would take some time for Thailand to recover its pig production to the same level as before.

Thailand on alert over ASF. Thailand is beefing up a border control to prevent an entry of African Swine Fever (ASF), which is breaking out in China.

The Department of Livestock Development (DLD) is tightening inspections at its border checkpoints throughout the country. The move is aimed at stopping smuggling of live pigs and pork that could carry ASF into the country.

This has let the DLD to impound nearly nine tonnes of frozen suckling pigs of unknown origins in four cold storages in the country. Two of the cold storages are located near the border of Cambodia and remainders are on the outskirts of Bangkok.

As the ASF virus could be carried via clothes and processed pork products, the DLD is also screening tourists from China who come from the ASF-infected areas. Additionally, the focus is also placed on tourists who work in pig farms from elsewhere in China.

Thailand is free from ASF.

Watchful over beta-agonist

Apart from its stringent measure on ASF, the DLD is being vigilant over the use of beta-agonist, which is a toxic substance illegally used to feed pigs to increase leanness in Thailand.It is testing for beta-agonist from live pigs and also pork at wet market stalls.

Despite of severe penalties, some farmers are risk using the banned substance in exchange of a slightly higher percentage of lean meat in their pigs.

This signals that there is a problem in the breeds that they are using. The breeds in question would either be slow-growing or accumulating a huge amount of fat at the finisher stage.Therefore, it would be time for the pig producers in Thailand to reconsider their breeds of choices. They need to select the breeds that can reach the market weight faster with a better carcass composition and yield.

The sharp increase in the in the number of large producers going into the slaughter, meat processing and pork shop business has sparked an interest in the Genesus Duroc known for its good colour, taste and marbling. Genesus pigs are strong, fast-growing with exceptional carcass eating experience based on over 20 years of continuous research into meat quality. The Genesus commitment to research and development continues to enhance the existing programs and ensure that Genesus pigs will remain competitive on the future marketplace.

Vietnam

The price of the live pig this week is 50.000 vnd (2.14 USD)/kg, in recent months they have moved from one of the lowest pig prices in the world up to one of the highest but still a long way behind the champion of the pig price South Korea currently receiving 3.68USD/kg liveweight.

A lot of the farmers in Vietnam think the pig price will rise further on the back of ASF in China. Let’s hope the farmers have learned their lesson from the 18 months of losses and make investment in the farm to improve genetics, health, production and automatic feed systems requiring less labour with the aim to reduce their cost of production and strengthen their business for the future.

Tan Long group is cooperating with Posco Daewoo from Korea to develop business of swine. Their plan is to enter the 3F business (Feed, Farm, Food).

CP is investing in a large slaughter house in Binh Phuoc province with the aim to export meat products.

Genesus will be at VIETSTOCK 2018 between 17-20 October 2018. We look forward to meeting you !

Philippines

The Philippine Pig industry remains profitable with average farm gate prices continuing to rise and number of pigs continues to grow 2.4% in Q1 2018.

The Philippine Government and Department of Agriculture is controlling smuggling of pork into the Philippines and is encouraging farmers to expand.

S.E. Asia

The profitability has come back to S.E. Asia but the concern is African Swine Fever (ASF) has entering China where half the World’s pigs (estimated at 500 million) are housed and up to half of the these pigs are kept in backyard farms.

  • Are these backyard farmers aware about and operating biosecurity and the importance of it?
  • What other impacts will this have on the industry? The soybean futures are already falling most likely due to ASF fears.
  • Will the increased culling of pigs due to ASF increase pig prices around the world?
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