China’s Missing Pigs Reveal Trouble Tracking Animals Raised on Family Farms
- African swine fever may mean 200 million fewer pigs in China
- Official reports underestimate number of hogs killed or culled
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A year after China’s pigs began dying en masse in the world’s most devastating animal disease outbreak, analysts are yet to get a clear handle on exactly how many hogs have been eliminated.
China, the world’s biggest pork-producing and consuming nation, has reported that about 1.2 million pigs have been culled in an effort to contain African swine fever. Yet pig inventories plunged 39% in August from a year earlier, when the virus was first detected in the country. That equates to a loss of 167 million animals, based on the 428 million head the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates China had at the end of 2018.