Up, then down again! The live hog market weakened once more today, and the brief recovery vanished in an instant! According to data monitoring by Zhuduoduo, the national average price for live hogs of the three-way crossbreed on 11 month 3 was 9.07 yuan/kilogram, down 0.04 yuan/kilogram from yesterday. Across the country, quotations in most hog-producing regions pulled back, leaving markets in both the north and south looking “awash in red.” This round of hog price gains quickly fizzled out, mainly because three bearish factors continue to weigh on the market.
The first major pressure comes from the supply side. Large hogs held back earlier and hogs raised for a second round of fattening are waiting in concentrated numbers for the peak-season window. The latest monitoring data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs show that the average live hog weight at slaughter nationwide rose again to 89.11 kilograms in week 43 of 2026. Combined with stable shipping plans at large-scale pig farms, the overall hog supply base remains relatively high, and the short-term ample-supply situation has not changed.
The second bearish factor is that frozen pork stocks continue to weigh on spot prices. Cold-storage frozen pork inventories are currently high. Whenever fresh pork prices rise, traders release stocks into the market, directly limiting the room for hog prices to increase. On 11 month 2, 1200 tons of frozen pork from the central reserve were sold in a stock rotation, with the entire quantity sold at a price of just 7460 yuan/ton. Slaughtering enterprises are mostly replenishing stocks as needed, while the pace of sales of dressed carcasses is relatively slow, making it difficult to drive sustained gains in prices for standard-weight hogs.
The third major bearish factor is that demand during the cured-meat season is falling short of expectations. It is still only the early stage of stocking up for curing, and temperatures across the south are generally high. Cured-meat processing has not yet entered its peak period. In addition, changing consumer habits mean fewer households are making cured meat at home, so the peak season is providing less support than in previous years.
Looking at the scissors gap between costs and hog prices, hog farming remains deeply unprofitable, with losses for farms that breed and raise their own pigs holding at around three hundred yuan per head. Farms that purchase piglets face even greater losses: their upfront investment in piglets is high, and persistently weak hog prices have further widened losses for many such farms. For now, corn and soybean meal prices remain firm, leaving limited room for feed costs to fall. It will be difficult for costs to ease the burden on farmers.
According to assessments by industry organizations, hog prices in 11 may fall first and then rise slightly, with the monthly average down month on month. In the fourth quarter, hog prices are highly likely to remain low and fluctuate as they seek a bottom. Temporary rebounds may occur repeatedly, but a trend reversal will still depend on further improvement in supply and demand fundamentals. Farmers should also be reminded that disease risks rise in winter; keeping production stable is key to maintaining the confidence to weather the cycle. What do you think?