▎“Why isn’t a pig farm with great-looking data making money?”
On 10 30, at the TOP large-scale farm special seminar and Yongcheng Breeding International Symposium, Professor Zhu Li of Sichuan Agricultural University put this question on the first slide of his presentation. His follow-up questions prompted the audience to think deeply: Does having sows give birth to more piglets necessarily mean lower costs? Does having fattening pigs grow faster necessarily mean lower costs?
This seminar, themed “Breeding Insights · Shared Value,” brought together breeding experts from around the world, including the United States, Canada, and China, as well as more than fifty large-scale pig farm owners and breeding directors in Fuqing, Fujian. The meeting focused on a shift in industry thinking: as pig farming moves from rapid growth into a steady state of slim margins, lasting competitiveness no longer comes from raising more pigs, but from accurately assessing and fully harnessing each pig’s genetic potential.
01 A single-point metric has failed; balanced breeding has become the new goal
For a long time, metrics such as PSY and feed conversion ratio were the gold standard in the pig industry. Whoever had the better numbers was considered more advanced.
Professor Hinkle of Purdue University in the United States
The report by Professor Hinkle of Purdue University in the United States also began with a rhetorical question: Is the number of weaned piglets provided by each sow per year—that is, PSY—really the best goal for the entire production system?
This question was barely raised over the past two decades. The industry consistently selected in this direction: sows should produce more piglets, fattening pigs should grow faster, and carcasses should be lean enough. All three goals were achieved. But Hinkel used data from commercial farms to show that producing more comes at a cost: when total litter size rose from 11 to 15 piglets, piglet survival fell from 86% to 76%, and the additional piglets weaned ultimately looked far less impressive than they did on paper.
“Overemphasizing a single trait may undermine the overall efficiency of the production system.” He advocates “balanced breeding”: the maternal-line selection index should reasonably weight traits such as reproduction and growth in line with economic objectives, while also taking into account indicators such as the number of functional teats, the weaning-to-estrus interval, and sow productive lifespan.
Professor Zhu Li, Dean of the College of Animal Science and Technology at Sichuan Agricultural University and Deputy Director of the National Key Laboratory of Pig and Poultry Breeding
Professor Zhu Li of Sichuan Agricultural University also presented a comparison in his lecture: the number of piglets weaned at each of four nucleus farms was around 12, but when “nonproductive births + losses during lactation” were converted into monetary terms, the difference per parity could reach 609 yuan per sow. “A total litter size of 18 piglets, 17 born alive, but only 12 weaned—the extra piglets are the ones that die in the farrowing crate, along with feed, labor, and pen space wasted on them.”
Image from Professor Zhu Li’s presentation on “Identifying Inefficient Productivity in Pig Breeding and Production and Future Developments”
A more hidden form of waste lies among the “big eaters.” Professor Zhu Li’s team distilled 30-ten-thousand records from automatic feeding stations down to 710 core pigs, redefining feed efficiency: FCR (feed conversion ratio) is the ratio of feed intake to weight gain. Selecting based on FCR alone makes it difficult to distinguish the contributions of factors such as growth rate, feed intake level, and maintenance requirements. RFI (residual feed intake), by contrast, is the difference between actual feed intake and expected feed intake after accounting for factors such as growth rate and metabolic body weight, and can provide a complementary assessment of differences in feed utilization. The correlation coefficient between FCR and RFI is 0.727, indicating that the two measures are related but do not fully reflect the same individual differences.
“There’s a pig whose FCR looks poor, but whose RFI ranks in the top 5 percent of the whole group, eating 0.354 kilograms less than expected each day. Under traditional measures, it would be culled, but it may have feed-saving potential worth further evaluation.” Professor Zhu Li ran the numbers: according to estimates in the report, jointly selecting for FCR and RFI could yield additional feed savings. Taking a herd of a thousand sows as an example, the estimated annual feed savings are about 23 tons.
Experts from China and abroad arrived independently at the same conclusion: the optimum for an individual trait is not the optimum for the production system as a whole. Professor Zhu Li put it more fundamentally: the goal of breeding needs to be rewritten from “cost minimization” to “value maximization.”
02 From whole-genome selection to precision feeding, allowing genetic potential to truly be realized
Achieving the goals of balanced breeding depends on the application of more new technologies.
Professor Liu Jianfeng, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University; doctoral supervisor and vice dean
Professor Liu Jianfeng of China Agricultural University described the significant progress in whole-genome breeding technology: more than 10 ten thousand genotyped animals have been accumulated in relevant nationwide genomic datasets, covering three breeds—Large White, Landrace, and Duroc—with 53 participating companies submitting data. Joint evaluation has increased the average prediction accuracy for age at 120 kg by 25.77%, while the average prediction accuracy for breeding values for reproductive traits has increased by 30.54%. “Heterogeneous chips” are no longer an obstacle: SNP chip data with different densities and different marker compositions can be integrated through methods such as quality control and genotype imputation, allowing historical testing investments to be continuously reused.
“Traditional breeding selection relied mainly on pedigrees and phenotypic records; genomic selection enables genetic evaluation at an early stage, improves selection accuracy, and creates conditions for shortening the generation interval.” Liu Jianfeng cited several company cases to illustrate this: the breeding value for total litter size in Large White pigs has continued to rise since genomic evaluation was introduced; low-density chips plus imputation have greatly expanded candidate coverage under the same budget.
JYGA Technical Pig Nutrition Researcher and Canadian animal scientist Dr. Alexia Godbout
After “selecting genes accurately,” the next priority is to put them to work on the pig farm. Dr. Alexia Godbout of Université Laval in Canada brought the issue to the feeding stage: “Genetic potential is the ceiling; feeding strategy is the ladder.”
She conducted multiple comparative trials at her own sow farm with 2200 sows: for replacement gilts aged 120–200 days, restricted feeding reduced feed by 15% compared with ad libitum feeding, improved backfat uniformity, and increased retention rate at parity 2 by 8.9 percentage points. “Modern replacement gilts grow too fast. Raising them like finishing pigs means drawing down their reproductive lifespan.” She used a four-dimensional model to reclassify lactating sows—high milk yield does not necessarily mean high efficiency; the key is whether backfat and loin eye muscle are “preserved” or “used up” during lactation.
Professor Chen Shiyi, College of Animal Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural University
Professor Chen Shiyi of Sichuan Agricultural University took another approach to expanding the scope of pig-farm analysis: using a whole-system stochastic bioeconomic model for commercial pigs to bring factors such as early-stage traits in replacement pigs, heat stress, parity structure, nutrition, and market prices into a single analytical framework. The results from 1000 sows, 10 annual cycles, and 150 runs were straightforward: under the conditions specified by the model, when THI exceeded 74, indicators such as estrus, conception rate, and weaning weight declined. “Heat stress is not an occasional weather event; it is a constant variable. Decisions cannot be made by guesswork based on experience; they must take probability distributions into account.”
03 A seminar offers a glimpse of another path for Chinese-bred breeding pigs
China’s pig farming industry is undergoing profound change, shifting from “cost competition” to “value restructuring.” What role should breeding stock play?
Hinkel emphasized that the core of balanced breeding is not to pursue the ultimate performance of a single trait, but to start from actual production needs and incorporate key traits such as reproductive performance, growth rate, feed utilization efficiency, and breeding stock lifespan into a comprehensive selection index, achieving coordinated improvement across multiple traits. “If the selection index is disconnected from the production system, even rapid genetic progress cannot be converted into profit.”
This philosophy closely aligns with the breeding direction Yongcheng has followed for more than ten years. Yongcheng has consistently adhered to a production-efficiency-oriented approach to balanced breeding, without pursuing growth rate single-mindedly or treating PSY as the sole measure of reproductive performance. Instead, it incorporates key economic traits such as the number of healthy piglets born, birth weight, weaning weight, number of piglets weaned, growth rate, lean meat percentage, and feed-to-meat ratio into a comprehensive breeding system. Through joint genetic evaluation and comprehensive selection across multiple traits, it promotes coordinated improvements in reproductive performance, growth performance, and feed efficiency, so that the results of genetic improvement are truly converted into production efficiency and economic value for customers.
Dr. Li Weining, PhD, China Agricultural University · Head of Yongcheng Breeding R&D
Dr. Li Weining, Head of Yongcheng Breeding R&D, used detailed data to describe Yongcheng’s continued efforts in breeding: 34 years focused on breeding, 3 genetic R&D bases, a core population of nearly 5000 head, 61 ten thousand pedigree records, and 21 ten thousand sets of performance testing data; a boar retention rate of 1.05%, compared with an industry average of 6.44%; and a dedicated genetic evaluation model co-developed with Purdue University, with the ssGBLUP single-step genomic selection method applied comprehensively.
The results are likewise a verifiable time series. For Duroc pigs, from 2010 to 2025, the age at which they reached 120 kilograms was reduced by 27 days. By 2025, the herd average was 156.5 days, while the fastest 10% needed only 140.8 days. According to the measurement data shown, Yongcheng’s 95 line of Duroc pigs had an average feed-to-weight ratio of 1.95 during the 30–120 kilogram stage. Average daily gain reached 1.1 kilograms/day, and complete feed-to-meat ratio and whole-genome data can be provided to customers.
Chen Shiyi’s bioeconomic model points in the same direction: the value of a future pig breeding company will not lie solely in selling a good boar, but in providing a decision-making system that can be simulated, validated, and iterated. How to adjust for heat stress, how to arrange parity, and how to select for early traits will no longer rely solely on the experience of seasoned practitioners, but on the joint iteration of models and the company’s own data.
“Germplasm Co-creation · China-International Dialogue” session
In the final “Germplasm Co-creation · China-International Dialogue” session, Chinese and international experts reached the same conclusion: China does not need to repeat the cycle of “importing foreign breeds—maintaining them—seeing them deteriorate—then importing new ones.” Instead, it should use Chinese data, Chinese contexts, and Chinese consumer preferences to develop its own lines. Yongcheng calls these the “Yongcheng line,” while the industry is more inclined to see them as a key piece of the “Huaxi breeding pig” puzzle. A project in which it participated has just won the First Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, with a focus on breeding terminal sires for the Huaxi line.
The cycle cannot be predicted, but genetic progress can be accumulated. As the industry shifts from competing on scale to competing on systems, breeding stock efficiency will become the quietest yet most solid foundation in the next round of competition.