Danish Breeding Pigs Aid in the Re-establishment of Healthy Herds

The outbreak of the African Swine Fever in pigs has severely impacted the global pork supply. To help farmers counter this development, one of the world’s leading pig breeding companies, DanBred, supplies purebred pigs to a Chinese company, as a first step in the process of establishing a new herd of 20,000 healthy sows.

The African Swine Fever is one of the largest current risk factors in the global pork supply, and as the average Chinese person consumed more than 24 kilos of pork in 2019, the supply of healthy, high-quality pigs is invaluable to the Chinese farmers.

Pork prices have risen significantly around the world since China has lost an estimated half of their total pig population due to the African Swine Fever, which has caused a massive demand in China for imported pork meat and pigs.

The imports of pork rose 71% in China from 2018 to 2019 mostly due to the highly contagious African Swine Fever. The primary solution is to re-establish healthy herds of pigs to counter the disease and thereby the rising costs associated with it.

High-quality pigs to secure the future of Chinese pig herds

DanBred has together with its Chinese partners recently shipped 2,000 high-quality breeding sows and 200 breeding boars to the Chinese company Guilin Liyuan Cereal & Oil Feed Co Ltd., which was the largest order in the industry at the time. The pigs are going to be the backbone of the establishment of a healthy herd, which will help secure the future of the Chinese pig herds.

In 2014, a Chinese pig producer with pigs from DanBred reached a PSY (Pigs per Sow per Year) of 24, where the average number in China was 18

Denmark has a long and rich history as a reliable exporter of both purebred pigs and pork. This experience is a major factor in the high-quality of the exported products and the exchange of knowledge of how to raise the pigs properly.

Increased output matches the growing demand

Former shipments of DanBred pigs to China have produced breeding numbers well-above the national average in China. In 2014, a small Chinese family farm invested in pigs from DanBred and reached a PSY (Pigs per Sow per Year) of 24, where the average number in China was 18. That led another larger Chinese company to also invest, and they reached a PSY of 31.

DanBred provided technical support about biosecurity, management and nutrition, which ensured that the local companies had the proper knowledge to raise their new herd of pigs properly with the intention of producing pork for consumers.

These results are in large part due to the genetic potential of the DanBred animals, which are hyper prolific and have a higher documented genetic disposition for producing larger litters.