Pork Production in China, Japan and South Korea

Global pork markets are becoming more competitive, riding the wind of the bilateral free trade agreement. China is the world’s largest pork producer with nearly 50% of the world’s total production. China’s fast growing economy has provided its people with higher purchasing power, resulting in a rapid expansion of the Chinese swine industry over the past decades. Worldwide, China consumes the greatest amount of pork and it is believed that this trend will continue. Japan is the world’s largest pork importing country, even though it also produces a lot of pork. The Japanese swine industry encounters weighty obstacles in production costs and environmental limitations which result in reduced domestic supply and creates the situation in which Japan has to import a significant amount of pork for their consumption. South Korea is also a large buyer of pork, with a status greatly influenced by the struggle that the country has faced with Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) which occurred in 2000, 2002 and 2010. High production costs, low production efficiency, and forced culling following the FMD outbreak resulted in the loss of many hog farming households in the country, reducing supply of domestic pork in the face of continued demand. Overall, pork production in these economically important countries can greatly impact the industry globally. The goal of this review paper is to describe pork production in China, Japan, and South Korea and discuss these countries’ role in global pork export markets. (


INTRODUCTION
Global pork markets are becoming more competitive on the wings of the wind of the bilateral free trade agreement.Table 1 shows world per capita pork consumption from year 2005 to 2008.According to this table, Hong Kong is the first ranked region with around 65 kg per year followed by the European Union and Taiwan.The pork consumption in South Korea was seventh in 2005 and jumped up to fifth in 2008, which is partly due to the preparation process for the Free Trade Agreement between Korea and the United States.China is the world's largest pork producer, with nearly 50% of the world's total production (Table 2).Japan is the largest consumer of U.S. pork, purchasing 576,062 metric tons of U.S. pork in 2009 (Pork Checkoff, 2009).Frozen pork exports from the U.S. have maintained growth in the Japanese market.Pork consumption of these countries in Asia has increased over time and these markets are expected to keep growing in the future.Pork production in China, Japan and South Korea has greatly affected global pork export markets and this review paper will focus on those influences.

China
China covers almost half of the world's pork production, and is the largest pork and hog producer and one of the top pork consuming countries in the world (Tables 1 and 2).The total Chinese pork production in 2010 was about 50 million metric tons, which is close to 50% of total world pork production.A fast growing economy in China has provided the country with higher purchasing power, which allowed the Chinese swine industry to expand very quickly over the past decades.
Commercial hog farms in China were not very strong before 1985.Pork production was 10 million tons in 1979, growing to 43 million tons in 2007 (China's Pork Industry, 2008).Most of Chinese hog production was backyard production with pigs raised for family consumption, and the price set by the government.In 1985, the government introduced a policy to make the rural markets free, allowing free trade to the rural area.The free market system made hog production very active in the 1990s, which resulted in the balance of pork production and domestic consumption (35.9 vs. 35.8 million tons;China's Pork Industry, 2008).The Chinese government started to focus on improvement in productivity in the late 1990s and early 2000, about the world's largest pork producer with nearly 50% of the world's total production.China's fast growing economy has provided its people with higher purchasing power, resulting in a rapid expansion of the Chinese swine industry over the past decades.Worldwide, China consumes the greatest amount of pork and it is believed that this trend will continue.Japan is the world's largest pork importing country, even though it also produces a lot of pork.The Japanese swine industry encounters weighty obstacles in production costs and environmental limitations which result in reduced domestic supply and creates the situation in which Japan has to import a significant amount of pork for their consumption.South Korea is also a large buyer of pork, with a status greatly influenced by the struggle that the country has faced with Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) which occurred in 2000, 2002 and 2010.High production costs, low production efficiency, and forced culling following the FMD outbreak resulted in the loss of many hog farming households in the country, reducing supply of domestic pork in the face of continued demand.Overall, pork production in these economically important countries can greatly impact the industry globally.The goal of this review paper is to describe pork production in China, Japan, and South Korea and discuss these countries' role in global pork export markets.(Key Words : Pork, Production, China, Japan, South Korea) same time that pig breeders began to introduce foreign breeds to develop hybrids with the domestic breeds to increase meat quality and productivity.These changes likely played a part in the dramatic increase in specialized household operations from only 3% in 1985 to 51% in 2007, with this operation type becoming the most popular of the non-commercial pig operations in China.
Specialized household hog operations are those that obtain the majority of their income from pork production.These producers are usually defined by how many hogs they produce per year, often 10 to 500 head (China's Pork Industry, 2008), usually purchased as feeder pigs from a commercial breeding farm.Unlike traditional backyard producers, specialized household operations depend on feed grain produced on their own land and purchased from the market.It is predicted that traditional backyard production will decrease over the next 5 years, with the more specialized household operations replacing them.
China can be divided into the Northwest, Southwest, Southern, Central, Eastern, Northern Plain, and Northeast regions (China's Pork Industry, 2008).Traditionally, the Northern Plain, Southwestern, Central, and Eastern parts of China are high grain production areas and are highly populated.As a result, those areas have produced about 70% of the total pork production in China since 1980 (Table 4).The Northern Plain region is the number one pork producing region at 21.2%, followed by the Southwest at 20.3%, and the Central region at 18%.
In pork production, when regional feed corn production increases, hog production does as well and vice versa.This is reflected in a reduction of hogs in the Eastern region with low corn production and a concomitant increase in the Northern Plains region of China which has a high level of corn production (Tables 4 and 5).The Northeast has less hogs although it produces more corn because the cold weather does not allow for efficient livestock production.
Until the mid 1990s, the Southwest region was the most important pork producing region, generating about 23.5% of total hog production, which decreased slightly in 2007 to 20%.Regardless of the decrease, the Southwest area is still an important pork producing region of China.The type of production in this area is primarily backyard production; it consists of about 90% of the total production.The third   4 and 5).
From 1997 to 2008, the vastly preferred meat in China was pork.In Figure 1, the share changes of pork declined slightly little from over 68% in 1997 to about 63% in 2007, but pork remains dramatically dominant in total meat shares.While pork consumption as a percentage of total meat consumed has been declining over the past 10 years, the consumption of pork per person has been generally increasing over the years (Figure 2).
The consumption of pork per person has been increasing because of the growth of income and the pork production stimulus policy in China; it is predicted to continue to grow in the future.Per capita pork consumption in China has increased from 29 kg in 1997 to 35 kg in 2006, up 22% in 10 years.A dramatic decline in 2007 to 32 kg per person was due to reduced supply and resulting higher pork prices caused by pig diseases and rising feed costs.Per capita pork consumption in China is estimated to grow to 11% over the next 10 years to 38 kg per person in 2017 (Figure 2).Unless supply can continue to match the estimated demand, China will impact global production as an importer of pork.
As a country, China consumes approximately 32 kg annually which is about 5 kg more than the world average of about 27 kg.The Chinese per capita pork consumption is slightly higher than the United States, Canada, South Korea, Australia, Japan, and Brazil, but is lower than Hong Kong and Taiwan (Figure 3).In 2007, Hong Kong's per capita pork consumption was about double that of mainland China, with Taiwan at approximately 8 kg more than mainland China (Figure 3).

Japan
Japan produces and consumes a lot of pork since this meat is the foundation of their food industry along with rice and vegetables.Figure 4 represents the share of agricultural products in Japan.Livestock production comprises about 30% of all agricultural products, which is about 28 billion dollars.In Japanese livestock production, dairy production is the highest at about 25.6% and swine production is second at about 21%, or approximately 6 billion dollars (Table 6).Japan is ranked 8 th in pork production in the world, and produces 1.3 million metric tons of pork per year (Table 3).However, the number of farming households in Japan has declined steadily since 1999 (Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 2009).From 2006 to 2007, there was a decrease of 4.2%, which is equivalent to 7,230 households.There has been a steady decline in total number of pigs over the years in Japan.However, there was some stability over the years.The decrease from 2006 to 2007 was approximately 0.1%, which was about the same from the previous year (Figure 6).Also, the number of sows in 2007 decreased 0.5% compared to 2006.In the mean time, there was an increase in total number of pigs after 2008, but it decreased again and showed about the same number as previous years because of FMD and hot weather (Livestock statistics, 2011).Interestingly, the number of head per farm household steadily increased from 1999-2011, as noted within Figure 7.
The pork industry in Japan was almost destroyed after the Second World War.However, as the Japanese regained economic power, meat consumption increased dramatically.Free trade in Japan started in 1971 (Hoshino, 2006), which greatly affected pork imports.Earlier on in Japan's importing history, they imported frozen pork products.In 1993, Japan imported fresh meat from Taiwan.However, in 1997 there was foot and mouth disease in Taiwan and Japan stopped importing pork from Taiwan for that year.This ban resulted in a prime opportunity for the U.S. and Canadian pork industries, resulting in an observed increase in pork exports to Japan at the time.Fresh pork imports have increased over the years, and the U.S. exported almost 1.1 billion dollars worth of pork to Japan in 2005.This trend continued and, in 2008, U.S. pork exports were worth 1.5 billion dollars (Pork Checkoff, 2009).
The total world pork production is about 95 million metric tons (Table 2).Out of the world total production, the portion available for export is about 5%, which would be 5 million metric tons, with the portion of Japanese     imports being about 1.2 million metric tons, representing approximately 25% of total world pork imports per year.Japan is the world's greatest pork importing country (Table 7), greatly impact the world industry.However, the consumption per person ranks only 12 th in the world (Table 1).Based on this observation, the Japanese import more pork as a result of economic efficiency.Because pork production costs are very high in Japan compared to other countries, it is more effective from an economical standpoint to import pork (PIC, 2006).
Table 8 shows the number of farm households (producing pork) by region, clearly showing that the numbers decreased over the 5 year span from 2003-2008.The area with the most farm households and animal numbers is in the Kyushu region and the Kanto region, in which the Kanto plain is located.Although the number of farms has decreased over time, the total number of animals has not changed that much from 2003-2008, resulting from and apparent increase in number of animals per farm.Though the Kyushu and Kanto regions have the most farms and total animals, the area of the country with the most animals per farm is the Hokkaido region followed by the Tohoku region.
Represented in Table 9 are the top five pig production prefectures (large-area regions) in Japan which comprise nearly 40% of the country's national production.The Kyushu region produces the most pork since the top two prefectures, Kagoshima (at 793 million) and Miyazaki (at 531 million) are both in that region, located at the southwestern tip of the Kyushu Island.Ibaraki and Chiba are both part of the Kanto region (on the Honshu Island) and represent the third and fourth highest financial production of pork.
The profit per market hog dropped dramatically in 2001, likely due to higher costs of corn oil and the resulting increase in feed prices as corn costs rose (Figure 5).Profits increased in 2004 and 2005 as a result of reduced consumption in beef and chicken due to BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) in the United States and also a result of AI (Avian Influenza) in many places.In 2006 and   2007, carcass prices remained relatively the same but feedstuff costs increased, resulting in a small drop in profit per market hog in those years (Swine production report, Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 2009).

South Korea
South Korea produces about one million metric tons of pork every year, which positions it at 11 th in the world (Table 2).In 2006, South Korean pork consumption was ranked 5 th in the world (Table 1).In the country, pork is the second largest farming sector of agriculture after rice and is followed by beef, milk and eggs (Table 10).In 2003, pork production was 8.3% of the total agricultural receipts, which increased to 10.6% in 2008.Livestock in general represented 7.4 billion dollars (28%) of the total receipts in 2003 and increased to 11.3 billion dollars (35.5%) in 2008.The swine industry represented approximately 2.2 billion dollars (or 30%) of the livestock sector in 2003.Although total sales increased to 3.4 billion for swine for 2008, livestock sales also increased, resulting in swine still representing approximately 30% of the livestock sector (Table 11).
For meat consumption in South Korea from 1995-2008, pork was the preferred meat, with beef and chicken ranking nearly equally far below pork (Figure 9).Although pork consumption increased over the time period reported, chicken and beef did not increase, likely in part due to the global avian influenza pandemic and the finding of mad cow disease in the U.S. Figure 9 shows a similar trend with much more consumption of pork (approximately 20 kg/person consumed annually) than that of chicken.
The number of pork operations in South Korea has decreased dramatically since 2000 (Figure 10).Pork operation numbers peaked in 1996, with 33,000 household pork operations and decreased in 2000 to 23,800 households.By 2009, total swine farm operations in Korea had decreased to just over 7,900 (Figure 10), or 33% of the number reported in 2000.A small farm household is defined    in South Korea as having less than 1,000 hogs.In 2000, the number of small farm operations raising less than 10,000 head was 21,500, dropping drastically to 4,800 in 2009, which means that most of small producers gave up their business, likely due to the impact of integration in swine industry during the period (Korea Swine Association, 2010).While small farm operations decreased, the general trend of the total hog inventory in South Korea was an upward one, basically increasing from 8.2 million in 2000 to approximately 9.6 million in 2009 (Figure 11).From 2006 to 2009, there was a 43% increase in hog numbers.
Notable drops in inventory were observed from 2003 to 2004 and again from 2004 to 2008, in part due to the global rise in feed costs; this rise in the cost of feed also contributed to the reduction in small farm household operations.
The number of animals per operation in South Korea increased about 4 times the recorded average of 342 head per operation in 2000 to 1,203 head per operation in 2009.Overall, in the past 10 years, there has been a huge increase in the number of animals per operation (Figure 12).This would be expected as the total number of animals has generally increased, but the number of small farm operations decreased over that time, indicating an expansion      of larger operations.For example, though operations with 5,000 hogs or more were only 3.33% of all hog operations, they comprise 26.5% of total animal inventory (Korea Swine Association, 2010).The expansion of operations demonstrates that the South Korean swine industry is becoming more effective through structure, modernization, and dramatic improvement of production practices.
In 2000, there were just over 13 million hogs slaughtered annually in South Korea, with the number increasing to 15.3 million in 2002 and then decreasing to 13 million in 2006.After 2006, the number of hogs slaughtered per year slightly increased to 13.9 million in 2009.
The pork supply in South Korea decreased from 2003 to 2006, but slightly increased over the 2006 level in 2007 and 2008 (Figure 14).In 2008, approximately 700,000 tons of pork was produced in South Korea, and about 200,000 tons were imported.Pork imports in 2006-2008 were higher than previous years, which may be explained somewhat by the finding of BSE in cattle and Avian Influenza in poultry, resulting in pork consumption replacing that of beef and poultry.In addition, high costs of production (including feed costs), low production efficiency, and forced culling due to a FMD outbreak starting in 2000 resulted in the loss of many hog farming households in the country, reducing supply in the face of continued demand.

CONCLUSION
China produces almost half of the world pork production, and is the largest pork and hog producer and consumer in the world.China's fast growing economy has provided the Chinese with greater purchasing power, which allowed the Chinese swine industry to expand very quickly over the past decades.It is expected that the high level of pork consumption in China will continue to increase in the coming years.
Japan is the world's largest pork importing country, even though they produce a lot of pork themselves, ranking 8 th in the world in terms of pork production.The Japanese swine industry encounters obstacles such as high production costs and environmental limitations, which creates a situation in which Japan continues to import pork for their country.To overcome these obstacles, Japanese pork production has been developing branded pork products and value added pork.
South Korea is ranked as 11 th in world pork production but 5 th in the world for consumption.The livestock industry makes up 35.5% of total agriculture, and the swine industry represents 30% of livestock industry.However, the high costs of production (including feed costs), low production efficiency, and forced culling due to a FMD outbreak starting in 2000 resulted in the loss of many hog farming households in the country, reducing supply in the face of continued demand, positioning South Korea as a net importer in the global pork industry.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Share changes of pork production in China (%).China's Pork Industry: Recent Trends and Implications for World Meat Trade and Grains Trade.Informa Economics.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Per capita meat and egg consumption in China.China's Pork Industry: Recent Trends and Implications for World Meat Trade and Grains Trade.Informa Economics.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Per capita pork consumption over years.China's Pork Industry: Recent Trends and Implications for World Meat Trade and Grains Trade.Informa Economics.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Share of Japanese agricultural products.Swine production report.2009.Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Profit per market hog in Japan.Swine production report.2009.Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.Total number of pigs in Japan.Swine production report.2009.Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; Livestock statistics.2011.Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Figure 7 .
Figure 7. Number of head per farm house in Japan.Swine production report.2009.Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; Livestock statistics.2011.Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Figure 12 .
Figure 12.Head per operation by year in South Korea.Korea Swine Association.2010.

Figure 13 .
Figure 13.Number of slaughter by year (1,000 Head) in South Korea.Korea Swine Association.2010.

Table 2 . Change in world pork production from
China's Pork Industry: Recent Trends and Implications for World MeatTrade and Grains Trade.Informa Economics.

Table 1 .
World per capita pork consumption Quick Facts: The Pork Industry at a Glance, PorkCheckoff, 2009.largestpork producing region in China is the Central region, accounting for 18% of the total population.Like the Southwest region, Central region pork production has been slightly declining from 20% in 1985 to 18% in 2007, likely because the region has to import feed grains from other regions to meet its demand (Tables

Table 3 .
Top ten pork producing countries in 2009

Table 4 .
Regional distribution of pork production in China (%) * China's Pork Industry: Recent Trends and Implications for World Meat Trade and Grains Trade.Informa Economics.

Table 5 .
Regional distribution of corn production in China (%) * China's Pork Industry: Recent Trends and Implications for World Meat Trade and Grains Trade.Informa Economics.

Table 6 .
Livestock production in Japan Swine production report.2009.Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Table 7 .
Total pork imports in each country (1,000 metric tons) Livestock and Poultry: World Markets and Trade.2009.USDA.

Table 8 .
Number of pork producing farm houses, head, and head per house by region in Japan

Table 10 .
Farm receipt of top 5 agriculture products in South Korea

Table 11 .
Farm receipts in the agricultural sector for South Korea

Table 9 .
Top five pig production prefectures (large-area regions)