Although large-scale farming is the development trend of pig industry, free-range farmers still play an important role in stabilizing market supply and pork prices. Traditionally, retail pig raising has not only solved the problem of eating meat at home, but also provided a large amount of pork supply for the rural market. However, with the withdrawal of free-range households, pork prices in many rural areas have surpassed those in cities. For rural areas with more low-income people, this undoubtedly aggravates the difficulty of eating meat.
Grassroots cadres and the masses believe that we should not only look at pig breeding from the perspective of industrial development, but also consider people's livelihood factors. It is necessary to increase the policy inclination for free-range households, explore innovative industrial development models, and help free-range households to re-raise and increase production as soon as possible.
I have been raising pigs for decades, and now I can't afford it. "I have been raising pigs for decades, and now I buy my own meat. I feel that pork is still a big expense. " Liu Jinju, from Wanger Town, Qianshan County, Jiangxi Province, recently ate less pork than in the past. Faced with the price of a kilo of pork in 30 yuan, farmers used to call it "unaffordable".
Although the pig price is running at a high level, Liu Jinju still dare not raise it easily. Half a month's interview with reporters found that there are fewer and fewer free-range households in rural areas, and many villages can't hear pigs barking now. "I have raised pigs for half my life. This is the first time I have dropped the order. " Ji Sun, a farmer from Baishi Village, Pingchang County, Bazhong City, Sichuan Province, said that few people in the WeChat group of farmers in the village talked about buying feed together or exchanging pigs, and the free-range households in nearby towns and villages were basically cleared.
The staff of a pig farm in Zhongjiang County, Sichuan Province are checking the growth of pigs. Li she
In contrast, large-scale farms in Pingchang County have been put into production continuously. The largest project has an annual output of 2 million heads, which is equivalent to half of the annual output of Bazhong City.
"At present, there is indeed a trend that free-range households withdraw and the proportion of large-scale farms increases." He Zhiping, vice president of Sichuan Academy of Animal Husbandry Science, told reporters that in the past, the slaughter of free-range farmers in Sichuan Province accounted for about 60% of the total, but according to the latest survey, the slaughter of large-scale farms now accounts for 53.8%, and it is expected to reach 60% next year.
Why is the scale of retail farming recovering slowly? Peng Yinglin, secretary-general of Hunan Pig Association, told the reporter that it would cost a lot to update epidemic prevention and disinfection equipment to supplement the fence. In addition, the high price of sows and piglets has also made many free-range households "discouraged". "Now the number of piglets and sows is very small, and the price of a binary sow has risen to 5,000 yuan, which is equivalent to three times that of the past."
At the same time, unpredictable breeding risks also make retail investors afraid to refinance on a large scale. Guo Shangpei, a farmer in Guanchao Town, Taihe County, Jiangxi Province, said that his stock of live pigs is only a quarter of that in the past, hoping to reduce the density of live pigs and thus reduce business risks. "Before the vaccine came out, most retail investors did not dare to expand the scale easily, otherwise they would be' completely annihilated' if they were not careful."
There are multiple thresholds for returning to farming for free-range farmers. "Now the pig industry is very hot, and the trend of scale and capitalization is very obvious. Big companies gamble on probability, small companies gamble on life and death, and retail investors are not even qualified at the gambling table. " Liu, dean of the Zhongnan Branch of Nanjing Design Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, told reporters for half a month.
According to Peng Yinglin, the former retail pig farms have basically died out after this reshuffle, because without funds, the hardware can't meet the environmental protection requirements, and the epidemic prevention can't be 100% safe. After experiencing African swine fever, the entry threshold of aquaculture has been greatly improved, which is the choice of the market. Of course, there is another situation, that is, some small pig farms were originally in the suburbs, but with the expansion of urbanization, they passively entered the restricted and forbidden areas. "Small and medium-sized pig farms still need to exist. First of all, they are an important starting point for poverty alleviation. Secondly, they have an advantage in the balance of planting and breeding, and they can digest feces on the spot, unlike large enterprises facing huge environmental burdens. "
Under the background of stable production and supply, various pig producing areas in China have introduced measures to stabilize and restore pig production. Can small-scale farming such as retail investors recover from the east wind? The reporter learned that the situation of free-range households is not optimistic, and they still face the thresholds of capital, environmental protection and epidemic prevention.
"At present, some support policies are still tilted towards large-scale aquaculture enterprises, such as land concessions, financial and credit support, and subsidies for improved pig breeds. Generally speaking, it is more difficult for smaller retail investors to apply for these subsidies and concessions. " Lu, president of the pig breeding industry association in Wannian County, Jiangxi Province, believes that due to the lack of free-range farmers in rural areas, it is difficult to meet the needs of the entire pig market simply by relying on the production capacity of large-scale farming. However, due to their small scale and relatively poor ability to resist risks, free-range farmers need more policy support to help them face challenges.
Zheng Chihe, a pig-raising entrepreneur in Sanhe Village, Zhaojue County, Sichuan Province, has a 3-year-old son chasing a Wujin pig in the mountains.
"Money, no hair." Many farmers report that fixed assets such as pens and decontamination centers in farms and living assets such as pigs cannot be used as collateral for bank loans. At present, the capital chain of free-range households is relatively tight under the situation that the cost of breeding has risen sharply.
Some people worry that environmental protection means turning a blind eye to restore production capacity now. When supply and demand are balanced, production capacity will be restored and environmental protection will be tightened. "Now the environmental protection department has no idea about raising pigs, and many standards are not uniform. Some local governments even put forward' zero emissions', which is completely impossible. "
To restore production capacity, some farmers and experts suggest that on the basis of normalized prevention and control of African swine fever epidemic, on the one hand, we should speed up the transformation and upgrading of pig industry and improve the scale, ecology and intelligence of breeding; On the other hand, we should continue to support free-range households and help them resume production as soon as possible.
"Prevention and control of African swine fever is still the top priority to ensure the recovery of pig production." Hu, deputy director of Sichuan Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau, said that at present, Sichuan has established an official veterinary grid management system consisting of epidemic prevention personnel at county, township and village levels132,000 and personnel stationed in slaughter, set up special classes for prevention and control of animal diseases at provincial, city and county levels, and set up 862 checkpoints at the entrances of expressway and provincial highways to prevent the import and spread of African swine fever and provide a stable environment for the recovery of pig production.
Lu believes that as the main body of China's pig industry, it is necessary to bring free-range households into the industrial policy support system, increase policy support, give preferential treatment from the aspects of finance, credit and subsidies, encourage free-range households to transform and upgrade, support small and medium-sized pig farms to improve facilities and equipment, and take the road of moderate scale, standardized breeding and high production efficiency.
Liu Manqiu, chairman of Hunan COVID-19 Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd., suggested that the relevant departments further optimize and simplify the loan approval process, and explore living assets such as fertile sows and fat pigs as collateral assets to help solve the shortage of funds.
Peng Yinglin said that the way out for retail investors is to cooperate with large companies. The linkage mechanism of "leading enterprises+farmers" built in many places has achieved results. Taihe county, Jiangxi province, built and rebuilt 29 large-scale pig farms this year, and plans to build 14 ecological breeding community to help free-range farmers breed through diversified forms such as acquisition, shareholding and cooperation. In Hechuan District, Chongqing, three leading aquaculture enterprises were introduced to build breeding farms, and the model of "providing breeding pigs on behalf of the company+standardized farms" was adopted.