China's pork imports fall further in 2023

These values ​​are a far cry from the record import volumes observed in 2020 and 2021, which were 4,380,000 tons and 3,710,000 tons of pork, respectively.

These data coincide with the first reported case of African swine fever in CHINA in August 2018, which led to a significant reduction in the pig population from more than 428 million HEAD in 2018 to 310 million head in 2019, a decrease of approximately 40%. As a result, pork production fell sharply from 54 million tons in 2018 to 44.55 in 2019 and 41.13 in 2020, leading to a record increase in imports of pork and by-products. Beginning in 2020, as the hog population and pork production recovered, the need for imports decreased, as can be seen in the following graph.