Genesus Global Market Report Southeast Asia July 2024

By
Jim Eadie
-

Paul Anderson, Genesus Southeast Asia

Paul.Anderson_GenesusSoutheastAsia@outlook.com

The Philippines

Overview

As of 31 March 2024, the country’s swine inventory was estimated at 9.96 million heads. This was 2.5 percent lower than the previous year’s same-period count of 10.21 million heads. About 70.4 percent of the country’s swine population came from small-hold (backyard) farms, while the remaining 27.1 percent and 2.4 percent were from commercial and semi-commercial farms, respectively.

The volume of hog production from January to March 2024 was recorded at 419.37 thousand metric tons, live weight. This indicates an annual decline of 4.3% from the 437.99 thousand metric tons of liveweight output in the same period of 2023. This was the first recorded decline after a steady recovery for seven consecutive quarters which started from the second quarter of 2022.

CALABARZON was the top producer of hogs with 63.50 thousand metric tons, liveweight or 15.1% share of the total hog production during the period. Completing the top five regions with the highest volume of hog production at live weight during the quarter were the following:

a. Northern Mindanao, 57.49 thousand metric tons;

b. Central Visayas, 51.95 thousand metric tons;

c. Central Luzon, 48.94 thousand metric tons; and

d. Davao Region, 32.77 thousand metric tons.

These regions accounted for 60.7 percent of the country’s total hog production.

CALABARZON recorded the highest swine population of 1,439.61 thousand heads as of 31 March 2024. Central Luzon and Northern Mindanao followed this with corresponding inventories of 1,067.90 thousand heads and 1,067.17 thousand heads.

These three regions accounted for a 35.9 percent share of the country’s total swine population.

ASF VACCINE

The vaccine against African Swine Fever (ASF) would soon be available for commercial use in the Philippines.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) announced that it would roll out African Swine Fever (ASF) vaccines by September—but it would only be for government use first.

DA Secretary Francisco Laurel made the pronouncement after the Food and Drug Administration had already approved the use of the ASF vaccine.

“The DA [now] has to bid it out. So, hopefully … by September it will be rolled out and those growers in our backyards will be vaccinated,” he said in a public briefing.

According to Sec. Laurel, however, the process of limiting it to government use would take at least six months before proceeding to commercial rollout.

“After that, hopefully, if everything passed and everything is okay, it will be for commercial use,” he added.

Sec. Laurel previously said that the availability of the vaccine will be able to address the spread of ASF in the country.

FARM-GATE PRICES

Top of Form

The country has been experiencing the continuous dipping of the live weight price of hogs since the third week of June. From PhP. 220 live weight price from major producing provinces in Luzon to PhP. 180 in just 4 weeks; and it’s expected to continue until September.

Many areas in the Philippines, particularly in Luzon were once again experiencing the reinfection of the deadly ASF virus. As the rainy days continue, it’s expected for this situation to worsen, and stricter biosecurity measures were placed by the remaining local hog raisers.

Vietnam

Thailand

Thai pig producers urge retailers to stop pork discount.

Retailers in Thailand are being urged to stop selling pork at a discount as it does not reflect actual production cost, according to producers.

The Thai Swine Raisers Association, representative of Thailand’s pig producers, said the retailers are heavily discounting the pork price in a bid to entice shoppers to buy pork.

“This action is further suppressing the pig price that is already below production cost,” said the association.

It said a reasonable retail price for lean pork should be 1.8 times above the ex-farm price of live pigs. However, the retailers set the retail price much lower than that as a promotion to boost pork sales.

The association said massive smuggling of frozen pork into the country two years ago has led to a sharp fall in pig and pork prices. It is almost impossible to trace back to the origin of pork on supermarket shelves.

“The association will propose livestock authorities to draft a regulation imposing retailers to identify an origin of farms where pork on their shelves is derived from,” it said.

 

The price of live pigs in Thailand remains sluggish as over 10,000 of containers of frozen pork were found to be smuggled into the country. Although the government is acting against this incident, culprits remain at large and only a handful of containers in question were seized and destroyed.

The cost of live pig production in the country is average at THB 80/kg (USD $2.2), but the price this week is only THB 70/kg (USD $1.9).

Thailand drafts project to reduce sow numbers, stabilize prices

The Pig Board has approved measures to stabilize pig prices and reduce excess supply from the system.

The Pig and Product Development Policy Committee (Pig Board) met and approved the (draft) additional pig price stabilization project to reduce production capacity by reducing the number of domestic sows to be in line with market demand. The main goal is to reduce 78,571 sows on 230 large pig farms that have over 1,000 sows to maintain market balance and solve the problem of losses for pig farmers. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, through the Department of Livestock Development, has requested cooperation from large pig farm operators to join the project to stabilize pig prices and reduce excess supply from the system.

In addition, measures and activities to monitor disease outbreaks in pigs, both proactively and reactively, have been continuously implemented, and the results have been expanded to disease-free pig farmers to build confidence in trading partner countries.

July 2024/ Royal Thai Government/ Thailand.
https://www.thaigov.go.th

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