The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture recently announced that there were 45.64 million sows in the country at the end of June, 9.34 million or 25.7% more than twelve months earlier. The total number of pigs increased within a year by 99.2 million animals or 29.2% to 439.11 million animals. This means that the herd size has grown back to the level of the end of 2017, the last year before the outbreak of the ASF, explained the ministry.

Pork production in the People's Republic also increased significantly in the first half of 2021. According to official figures, 334.4 million pigs were slaughtered, an increase of 86.4 million pigs or 34.4% compared to the previous year. Pork production also increased by 35.9% to 27.2 million t. The strong expansion in supply was accompanied by a sharp drop in Chinese slaughter pork prices, which have been a good 60% since the beginning of the year. In the meantime, it has also been possible to stop this through market intervention measures such as increased warehousing. The nationwide slaughter pig prices have stabilized in the meantime.

According to the agriculture department, China is still struggling with outbreaks of ASF in pig herds and is strictly adhering to the biosecurity measures taken. According to the ministry, there have been eleven ASF outbreaks in eight provinces so far this year, resulting in 2,216 pigs being killed. According to official information, 13,500 animals were culled in 19 outbreaks last year. This means that the number of infections has fallen sharply, as more than 800,000 pigs were emergency killed in 99 epidemic cases in 2018; a year later there were around 390,000 animals in 63 reported outbreaks.