African Swine Fever (ASF), a century old animal disease originated from Africa in 1921, now affects more than 40% of the global swine herd. It took only one year for the virus to spread across China and to reduce in half our swine inventory. The unprecedented impact disturbed the animal protein market in China, and globally. The domestic pork meat prices doubled for more than one year, which inflated the Consumer Price Index (CPI) strongly and continuously. Meanwhile, the overflow effect is impacting not only other species such as poultry, aqua, ruminants, but also exporting countries with additional pork production capacity such as Spain, Germany, U.S., Brazil.
The plans for the Chinese swine herd repopulation are being established among authorities, who are loosening rigid regulations; farmers, who are venturing to make risky investments; as well as academia, institutes and input providers, who are working very hard to enhance the productivity by all means. A simple and critical question is inevitably raised in that process: Do we really need to breed the same number of sows prior to ASF to produce equal number of fattening pigs into the market? The answer is clearly and firmly NO. We need to take this opportunity to explore solutions that achieve better production performance by improving the lifetime performance of the pigs, producing more with less animals and less use of natural resources, as demonstrated by key performance indicators such PSY (Pigs per Sow per Year) and MSY (Marketed-pigs per Sow per Year). And DSM can and will help in that process. China must thrive to catch up its productivity with the globally leading players such as Denmark in the next years. That will have a profound impact in the sustainability of our industry and of China.
The WE MAKE IT POSSIBLE new positioning supports our ambition to be the world leader in animal nutrition & health, providing tangible and measurable solutions to our customers so together we can tackle the biggest challenges facing society & the animal protein industry.
At DSM, we strongly believe in sustainable food systems and that the livestock industry can transform itself from within to be a part of the solution. We want to play a key role in this transformation and work at species and country level, with our partners, to provide tangible and actionable solutions to create brighter lives for all.
If not us, who?
If not now, when?
So, let’s make it possible!
All the best,
Justin Wang
Vice President of Greater China
