As a new outbreak of African swine fever continues to sweep across China, a RaboBank report says the Chinese sow herd has declined three-to-five percent each month since December. Chinese officials had predicted the country would return to pre-disease herd levels this year. The new outbreaks could delay that until 2023. While Rabobank believes China’s hog supply will generally increase in 2021, prices are expected to fluctuate due to the uncertainties of disease development, restocking interests, feed costs and import policies. In the meantime, the U.S. and Canada have developed protocol to ensure trade will continue if African swine fever is found in feral swine in either country. Upon initial ASF detection, all trade between the two countries would stop. Then, the protocol calls for trade to resume in three phases with increasingly reduce restrictions.
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