Pig International - July/August 2010

Ranking in 2009 Ranking in 2000 2000 2001 China 1 1 41406 42982 USA 2 2 8597 8691 Germany 3 3 3982 4074 Spain 4 4 2912 2993 Brazil 5 5 2556 2730 Vietnam 6 13 1409 1515 Russia 7 11 1569 1498 France 8 6 2318 2315 Canada 9 8 1640 1731 Poland 10 7 1892 1820 Italy 11 12 1488 1510 Denmark 12 9 1624 1714 Japan 13 14 1256 1232 Netherlands 14 10 1623 1433 Philippines 15 17 1008 1064 Mexico 16 16 1030 1058 Belgium 17 15 1055 1072 Korea Rep. 18 20 916 928 Taiwan 19 19 921 962 UK 20 18 923 781 Several of the countries, above, have changed their relative position compared to 2008 as well as in comparison with their place on the year-2000 list for size.

46150 10599

48614 10443 5254 3237 3224 2930 2205 2004 1790 1608 1588 1583 1285 1275 1225

1150

1082

1016

900

720

FIGURE 2: China shows a contrasting trend ▼

Contrasting trends, right, are being observed between
annual production in China, as the world’s largest single
pork-producing country, and all other producers globally.
Revised rankings

The pattern of production for the 20 largest national producers of pork is shown in Table 1, taken from our database.

As usual, it compares the position of each country on the lists for 2009 and 2000. Worth noting, however, are the positional changes that have occurred since the 2008 list. Russia moves up because of its expanded output, for example, while Denmark and Italy swap places and Korea has moved to a lower position.

After the cost difficulties presented to producers everywhere by the record-high feed grain prices of 2007, the question for pork since 2008 has been whether the demand for the meat from consumers would be affected severely by the widespread economic crisis and by the mis-naming of a variant H1N1 influenza virus, suggesting that it was transmitted by pigs. In particular, any significant alteration in sales would be reflected in the trade between countries.