Pig prices rose 60% in a year, pig farmers afraid of losses dare not enter the market

In some markets, pork retail prices have reached the highest level in recent years.

    Food prices remain high; experts expect May CPI and PPI to stay elevated

    The retail price of pork at Haizhu Market has reached the highest level in recent years. A reporter visited many markets in Guangzhou yesterday and found that the wholesale price of live pigs in Guangzhou has risen by nearly 60% compared with a year ago, causing meat prices in many meat and vegetable markets to rise accordingly, with ribs, lean meat and other meats each rising by 1 yuan per jin.

Pork prices

    When meat prices rise, farmers should be happy. Strangely, however, when the reporter visited farms, it was found that even though live pig prices were so good, some pig farmers could not be happy because their slaughter volume did not reach a certain scale, and other pig farmers who had been frightened by last year's losses did not dare to expand production on a large scale. They worried that buying in at high prices would repeat the tragedy of 2008 when "prices were so low that pigs were killed."

    Haizhu Market:

    Pork retail prices reach the highest level in recent years

    Recently, a reporter visited markets and found that meat prices in some Guangzhou markets had quietly risen. Yesterday, at Haizhu Market, the largest market in the urban area, the reporter saw that lean meat was selling for 15 yuan/jin, upper meat for 13 yuan/jin, and ribs for 16 yuan/jin. Manager Deng, the person in charge of the market, told the reporter that pork prices began to be raised last week, up 1 yuan/jin. "The main reason is that the purchase price has risen sharply. Now the purchase price of live pigs is 9 yuan/jin." According to the introduction, the market's pork retail price has reached the highest level in recent years.

    A meat stall owner told the reporter: "Raising prices is also unavoidable. Once prices rise, sales will definitely be affected. But if we do not raise prices, we will lose money, so we can only try to raise them as little as possible." Ms. Chen, a resident who was choosing pork, said: "A rise of 1 yuan per jin is still acceptable. If the price rises further, I will have to consider buying less." Aunt Xu told the reporter: "During this period, vegetable prices have become cheaper, but now it is pork's turn to rise. Although it costs only two or three yuan more each day, lean meat and ribs have to be bought every day, so over a month it costs 70 to 80 yuan more."

    Some residents said they could not afford pork and had switched to chicken. The reporter saw that cheap live chickens at Haizhu Market cost only 6-7 yuan/jin.

    Yesterday, the vegetable basket quotation from the Price Monitoring Center of the Guangzhou Price Bureau was: lean meat 32 yuan/kg, upper meat with skin 26.7 yuan/kg, and ribs 38.5 yuan/kg. This price was significantly higher than last week. In mid-May last year, the prices of lean meat, upper meat with skin, and ribs in Guangzhou were 27.54 yuan, 22.69 yuan, and 32.26 yuan respectively, so this year's prices have all risen by more than 10%.

    Wholesale market:

    Live pig prices change daily, but supply has decreased

    Pork retail prices have indeed risen, but compared with wholesale prices, their increase can be called negligible. The reporter went to Tianhe Livestock Wholesale Market yesterday and saw that live pig prices had soared to 8.2 yuan/jin. Stall owner He Ziqing of stalls No. 21 and No. 22 told the reporter, "8.2 yuan is the average price. The price for the best pigs is even higher, at 8.4 yuan/jin. Live pig prices change every day. Since January, live pig prices have risen month by month, and now they have reached a record high for this year."

    The reporter checked the Guangzhou Price Information Network and learned that at Jinrong Livestock Trading Wholesale Market, the average price yesterday of improved lean-type live pigs had soared to 8.20 yuan/jin, while on May 18 a year ago, the average wholesale price of the same type of live pigs was only 5.15 yuan/jin, an increase of nearly 60%. According to monitoring last week by the national agricultural and sideline products and agricultural input price quotation system, the current national average pork price rose 43.5% compared with the same period last year, approaching 16 yuan/kg.

    Prices are so high, yet supply has not increased. He Ziqing said: "Recently, the daily transaction volume of live pigs at Tianhe Livestock Wholesale Market has been about 3,500 head. The normal level is 4,000 head, and the peak period is 5,000 head. Therefore, the current market transaction volume is at a relatively low level. It is not that high prices leave no buyers; it is that supply falls short of demand!"

    However, a relevant person in charge of the Municipal Economic and Trade Commission told this newspaper yesterday that the three major live pig wholesale markets in Guangzhou currently list about 10,000 head per day on average, and this quantity can meet Guangzhou's current demand.

    Pig farmers' worries:

    Raising pigs is becoming more and more difficult, and they dare not expand production on a large scale

    "At this time last year, pork prices were shockingly low. At that time, live pig prices were more than 5 yuan per jin, but feed prices did not fall, which made many farmers feel helpless. Some farmers lost 200-300 yuan for every pig they raised. Many pig farmers who had been frightened by losses would rather starve the pigs to death than spend money and still lose money," He Ziqing said. In the space of a year, prices have reversed dramatically. But faced with such good prices, many pig farmers cannot smile.