Piglet feed business in China growing

Today there is great opportunity for international companies willing to engage in the right way with Chinese counterparts, in the business of piglet feeds. The Chinese businesses need expertise, new product ideas, and technology to move their pig market along. Perhaps, knowledge transfer is currently the most valuable commodity in agriculture!

China is a big market for pork products—1.4 billion people prefer to eat pork over everything else.
China is a big market for pork products—1.4 billion people prefer to eat pork over everything else.

Today there is great opportunity for international companies willing to engage in the right way with Chinese counterparts, in the business of piglet feeds. The Chinese businesses need expertise, new product ideas, and technology to move their pig market along. Perhaps, knowledge transfer is currently the most valuable commodity in agriculture! 

European piglet nutrition 
The application of piglet nutrition programs around the world differs significantly depending on the types of raw materials available and pricing. They also differ on the management practices associated with the production of nursery pigs to 30 kg. In Europe and lately in the Americas, producers use a "high performance" approach. This involves selecting the highest quality raw materials available and formulating them into a starter feed program that reaches the highest specifications possible.

A complex program of three to four separate piglet feeds is used throughout the period from pre-weaning to the end of the nursery phase. What also is a feature of high- performance nursery feeds is the lack of conventional least-cost formulation methodology. 

The feed products are constructed according to pure nutritional requirements and cost is to a large extent ignored especially in the early periods. This is because nutritionists understand the well proven relationships between early life growth and overall growth to slaughter in young pigs.

Having the right ingredients  
The question many of the large integrators and progressive Chinese pig production businesses should ask themselves right now is where they pitch their own management and nutritional practices to optimize production output and profitability. The first element is raw material availability.

I found that in China they can access and have locally manufactured almost all of the raw materials we can access to in Europe. This includes imported corn and wheat and even barley and oats are available to an extent (though expensive).  They also have access to cooked cereals of various types and many companies at present are looking to install their own heat treatment plants either via extrusion or micronization.  

The Chinese have a ready supply of rice products including polished rice and rice bran products that can be used. Cooked rice has been found to be very useful in piglet pre-starter feeds and first-stage nursery feeds, too. A variety of soya-based products including soya protein concentrates and fermented products also are produced in China. They have access to most of the types of milk powder that are widely used in starter programs in Europe, such as skim milk powder, whey powders and whey protein concentrates. Oil and fat products that are required for a high-performance program and some of these high digestibility oils, such as coconut and palm oil often are less expensive in China than in Europe. 

Learning from abroad

In general terms, China has the capacity to put together well designed high- performance nursery pig nutrition programs and the costs are very similar to what we see in Europe. What they lack right now is the expertise and confidence to use these raw materials in the right way to achieve their production goals. In the last five to 10 years, a few speciality companies opened in China focusing on nursery feeds like pre-starter feeds.

Some pig companies have come from Taiwan using European technology, and some have started using their own resources but with European consultants to guide them. One or two have quickly become market leaders across China as word-of-mouth spread their success stories.

The larger pig production companies have a long way to go to reach European standards (though they are learning very quickly). They operate around 14 pigs per sow per year (weaned) with a growth performance to slaughter at 115 kg (this varies widely) of maybe 450 - 550 g/d. They also know that in addition to the health status and disease problems that recur frequently, the nursery phase is one area that is limiting their progress.

Understanding the pig business

Currently, there are many large Chinese feed companies and slaughter pig companies with around 150,000 to 250,000 sows that are looking to improve their business. In the last few years, they have seen the progressive demise of the back-yarders, defined as less than 50 sows. They also have seen periods of very high prices for pigs allowing new investment and optimism in the pig production business.  

China is a big market for pork products - 1.4 billion people prefer to eat pork over everything else. The figures from China national statistics indicate that they consume about 30 kg of pork per capita per annum or around 50 million sows. 

Figure 1 shows the monetary value of both the European industries and the Asia industries - largely China pig production. Figure 2 shows Chinese pig census data and it can be seen that although large, pig numbers can rise and fall sharply as in 2007 when high strain PRRS became epidemic in China.

Challenging traditional thinking

What the Chinese need to learn is that they must adopt a mind-set change in their pig production strategy and nutritional programs. The early high- performance approach comes with a high-cost per ton for those early piglet feeds. The immediate reaction is the feed is too expensive or it will not deliver the extra growth.

The answer here is to repeat over and over again that starter feeds are only around 3 percent of the inputs in the whole program to slaughter and yet this small proportion controls 30 percent of the growth performance all the way through to 115 kg.  Once they have reviewed the methodology themselves and seen the results first hand, they are quick to adopt the whole program. 

Most Chinese pig production companies use a simple feed program with a creep feed used (perhaps) and then one more feed from 7 days post-weaning through to maybe 20-25 kg. This also needs to be changed to a more complex approach and can bring objections from Chinese nutritionists and buyers. 

A final major topic of business conversation in China is the use of antibiotics as growth promoters - and they conventionally use cocktails of antibiotics as a standard rule. They do, however, understand that at some point they will have to stop using these medicines in this way. They are maybe right not to remove all of the antibiotic growth promoters at a stroke, but they are willing to explore and investigate the alternatives just as we did in Europe pre-2006.

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