It is little wonder then that soaring pork prices over the past six months, which have threatened to deprive ordinary folk of their access to the meat, are bandied about with a sense of national crisis – especially now that China has become the world’s second-largest economy and most daily necessities are in abundant supply.

Official data published on Tuesday showed that pork prices rose by 46.7 per cent year on year in August, up significantly from a 27 per cent increase in July. This pushed food inflation up to 10 per cent from 9.1 per cent in July, and the headline consumer price index up to 2.8 per cent, close to the government’s set target of 3 per cent. Now economists expect pork prices to double by year end and continue to rise early next year.

Spikes in pork prices have mainly stemmed from an acute shortage of pigs caused by the spread of African swine fever, which has already wiped out one third of China’s pig population and is expected to halve the country’s pig numbers by year end. The disease is not harmful to humans but can be almost 100 per cent fatal to the affected pigs.

Increasingly vocal complaints about rising pork prices have not only become an economic issue but a touchy political problem too, amid a slowing economy and a prolonged trade war with the United States.

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As the Chinese prepared to mark the Mid-Autumn Festival, which fell on Friday, and the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic on October 1, soaring pork prices could certainly sour the mood. If the spike continues through early next year as expected, it could even mar the celebrations for the Spring Festival or Lunar New Year, China’s most important holiday.

According to official media reports, both Xi and Premier Li Keqiang have weighed in, giving instructions to boost pig production, and Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua is leading a special national task force to tackle the crisis. Over the past few months, the Chinese government has released a raft of measures to stem the spread of the disease and has doled out generous cash subsidies to compensate pig farmers who lost pigs as well as encourage others to increase production.

SIGN OF THE TIMES

In a sign of the desperate times, Nanning, the capital city of the southwestern Guangxi region, recently reintroduced pork coupons to enable residents to buy up to one kilogram of pork a day at discounted prices. The news immediately went viral nationwide, not only because of the severity of the problem, but more importantly because it evoked memories of the ubiquitous coupon system amid concerns that China’s political leanings are turning considerably left under Xi’s leadership.

Meanwhile, the government has also handed out 3.23 billion yuan in subsidies to low-income residents for pork purchases.

Indeed, some cynics have quipped that, to a certain extent, the Chinese leaders are as much concerned about the political and economic implications of soaring pork prices as they are about the anti-government protests in Hong Kong, if not more.

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With a population of 1.4 billion people and a strong affinity for pork, China naturally has the world’s biggest pig farms, accounting for half of the global hog population and the highest per capita consumption of pork. Last year, the number of pigs ready for slaughter was 694 million and the Chinese consumed nearly 56 million tons of pork, as much as the rest of the world combined.

The Chinese government even has strategic reserves of frozen pork at national and local government levels and the authorities have started to release this frozen pork into the market to stabilise prices. But those reserves are far from enough to fill an estimated shortfall of nearly 13 million tons for this year.

Interestingly, some overseas media reports have tried to link the rising pork prices with the ongoing trade war with the US. But figures have shown that imports account for 3 per cent of China’s pig production and imports from the US are less than 1 per cent.

In a recent document on boosting pig production, China still vows to keep the self-sufficiency of pig production to at least 95 per cent.

Pig farming in China is a volatile business which goes through a boom-bust cycle every few years. It just so happened that as pork prices started a downward cycle in February last year, which prompted farmers to reduce production in March, African swine fever broke out last August.

Ironically, the situation has been further compounded by the government’s forceful efforts to clean up the environment.

Unlike the large-scale pig farming industry in the US and other Western countries, China’s pig farming is largely dominated by small-scale family households in the countryside, which results in serious water and soil pollution.

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Since 2014, the Chinese authorities have unveiled a series of measures to regulate pig farming and reduce pollution. Officials in many regions became overzealous and took drastic measures to ban pig farming or set up unusually high environmental barriers which caused many pig farmers to quit the business.

Although the officials have started to relax those measures to entice the pig farmers to return, the production process takes at least 10 months from the gestation of a sow to the birth of piglets to raising them for slaughter.

As the crisis deepens, some have seen a silver lining though, as this could be a good opportunity for the Chinese to switch to more nutritious lamb and beef. Official data has shown that China’s consumption of pork compared to other meats has fallen from about 90 per cent in the 1980s to about 60 per cent currently. Some Chinese official media outlets have also started to carry reports raising the profile of plant-based meat substitutes in the name of promoting healthy living.

But all those efforts are too little, too late to alleviate the current crisis, as the soaring pork prices are set to hog headlines in the months to come. ■

Wang Xiangwei is the former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post. He is now based in Beijing as editorial adviser to the paper