The Ministry of Agriculture published updated policy guidance that sets the target for the country’s breeding sow herd at 37.5 million.
When this policy was first introduced, the target was 41 million. This was then revised lower to 39 million in 2024. In recent months, there has been some confusion about the target. Business publications in China were referencing a target of 36.5 million, but this was never officially confirmed.
The Ministry of Agriculture on Friday published ”Implementation Plan for Comprehensive Regulation and Control of Hog Production Capacity (Revised in 2026)” which sets out updated guidance.
The policy has some other interesting aspects. Each province or region has a baseline level of breeding sows based on the herd size at the end of 2025.
The National Bureau of Statistics will update the herd size estimates quarterly, but this will be supplemented with data from the Ministry of Agriculture monthly.
The Ministry of Agriculture previously published monthly estimates, but this stopped in late 2025. This likely means that going forward, the only published official data will be the quarterly data from the NBS.
Similar to previous policies, there are green, yellow, and red zones to address ‘excessive fluctuation in production capacity’ and outline what actions the government will take.
It’s unclear how much weight these warning zones will have given previous policy implementations.
Last June, the breeding sow herd was within the pre-defined ‘green zone’ where no action would be initiated, but the government still pushed for the breeding sow herd to be reduced by 1 million.
In March, I was quoted in the Financial Times about China’s hog market:
Friedrichs said enforcement had been limited so far but he expected a “stricter” approach from the government. “It’s sort of the anti-involution we’ve been seeing in other markets in China,” he said.
Industries in China from coffee to electric vehicles are increasingly characterised by so-called involution, or excessive price competition, part of overarching deflationary pressures that include weak consumer demand.
With this new policy, we are seeing stricter enforcement.
Farms with over 10k hogs are now included in the national-level pig production capacity control system.
Quoting the policy: “Farms that respond to the government’s call for capacity control can enjoy priority access to hog industry support policies”. And “those that fail to fulfill their capacity control commitments must be promptly removed from the capacity control list”.
The capacity control list is based on ‘voluntary participation and cooperation’ of hog farms.
That stands out as relatively unusual phrasing in a central government policy document. Given how frequently hog industry executives have been summoned for meetings in Beijing in the past year, it’s hard to imagine a company opting out of these capacity control measures.
The policy also says the government will “strengthen responsibility at all levels” and will focus on “coordinated efforts from top to bottom”, referring to local officials. Local governments are now expected to take more action when their provincial stocks of breeding sows exceed 103% or fall below 92% of their normal inventory.
Lastly, the government has set a target of maintaining the number of large-scale hog farms nationwide at 130k. Large-scale farms will be managed through a registration process, and local provinces are expected to maintain ‘overall stability’ in the number of large-scale farms.