Chinese Pork Demand Expected to Be Key Market Influencer Moving Forward

Apr 10, 2023

A Senior Risk Management Analyst with HAMS Marketing Services suggests China will be a key market to watch moving into the second quarter of 2023.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture released its Hogs and Pigs Report for the first quarter of 2023 March 30th.

Paul Marchand, a Senior Risk Management Analyst with HAMS Marketing Services, notes a two percent reduction in slaughter hog numbers predicted in the December report has turned into a slight increase in numbers.

Clip-Paul Marchand-HAMS Marketing Services:

The USDA usually has it pretty good and I was a little surprised that there wasn't more backlash, why where the USDA numbers off by so much?
When you did the math there was almost a four percent variance between what the USDA had implied would be available at the December Hogs and Pigs Report relative to what was actually being marketed at the beginning of the year.

The USDA has generally a good track record of implying what's going to be available for slaughter on the live hog market with the Hogs and Pigs Report.
Now that we have that supply side into the equation, it's really going to about demand at this point and there are some things to keep an eye out for.

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Video: Four Star Pork Industry Conf - Back to Basics: Fundamentals drive vaccine performance

At a time when disease pressure continues to challenge pork production systems across the United States, vaccination remains one of the most valuable and heavily debated tools available to veterinarians and producers.

Speaking at the 2025 Four Star Pork Industry Conference in Muncie, Indiana, Dr. Daniel Gascho, veterinarian at Four Star Veterinary Service, encouraged the industry to return to fundamentals in how vaccines are selected, handled and administered across sow farms, gilt development units and grow-finish operations.

Gascho acknowledged at the outset that vaccination can quickly become a technical and sometimes tedious topic. But he said that real-world execution, not complex immunology, is where most vaccine failures occur.