According to industry monitoring, the national average live hog price on the 11th of 12 was 8.55 yuan per kilogram.
Looking abroad, British pig farmers lost an average of 25 pounds per head in the third quarter. In Ontario, Canada, estimates based on the provincial agriculture ministry’s farrow-to-finish model show a profit of 15.18 Canadian dollars per head in 9, turning into a loss of 20.06 Canadian dollars in 10.
China is not the only country facing losses. Major production regions in Europe, North America, South America, and Southeast Asia have all hit a low point.
What is happening in different regions now
China: 8.55 yuan per kilogram; in the first three quarters, Muyuan's net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was approximately -93.2 billion yuan, and Wens's was -49.6 billion yuan
EU: In week 44, pig prices fell 14.4% year over year, and piglet prices fell 26.3%; Danish Crown said that current prices are “unsustainable for farm economics”
UK: The standard pig price fell from approximately 208 pence per kilogram in 2025/8 to approximately 178 pence; production costs were approximately 207 pence
Ontario, Canada: Benchmark price for the week of 11/6 was about 30.7% lower year over year
Paraná, Brazil: In 9, live hogs were 5.17 reais/kg, with costs of 6.13 reais; the selling price fell 27.8% year over year
Vietnam: In 11/12, the national average live hog price was about 4.8 ten thousand dong/kg; industry estimates put costs at 5.5 ten thousand to 5.9 ten thousand
Philippines: Farm-gate price was 140 to 150 pesos per kilogram, with break-even at about 165 pesos; the Department of Agriculture estimates domestic producers’ losses at 279 hundred million pesos for 1–7
Pricing measures differ across countries, so look only at the direction.
It’s not that anyone is pushing prices down; everyone has been raising more
Several organizations give roughly the same reasons.
Production is rising across the board. China’s pork production grew by 3.2% in the first three quarters, while the EU, Brazil, and Mexico are also all increasing production this year.
Demand is weak. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Rabobank both list weakening demand as a major pressure.
Feed is more expensive. Paraná’s 9-month soybean meal price rose 27.5% year over year, while Ontario’s 10-month price rose about 44.5%.
Exports are being blocked. EU pork exports to China in the first half of the year fell by 20% year on year. African swine fever was detected in wild boars in Spain at the end of last year, and markets including Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines imposed restrictions on Spanish pork. On 11 month 9, the Philippines again announced a suspension of imports of fresh and frozen pork and offal for 60 days.
Pork that cannot be exported is pushed back onto the domestic market, and exporting countries then compete for customers in third-party markets. Jos Blom, who is responsible for pig procurement at Dutch slaughterhouse Vion, said the EU market is “too full.”
This time, the external market could not pull prices up.
What did not fall was supply, which had already tightened.
U.S. hog prices are also falling. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s forecast for 10 month projected that the average hog price in the fourth quarter would be more than 15% lower than in the same period last year.
But according to estimates by Iowa State University, farrow-to-finish operations still earned 0.34 dollars per head in 10 month. This figure includes the manure credit; without it, they would have lost 5.25 dollars.
The difference is in the breeding herd. Since 2020 9, the U.S. breeding herd has recorded a year-over-year increase only twice; on 9 1 this year, it was down another 1%.
In Russia, wholesale prices for market hogs were up 11% year over year at the beginning of 11. Production growth has already slowed: marketings in 7 were up only 1.1% year over year, compared with 4.3% in the first half of the year; during the same period, wholesale chicken prices rose 37%.
The situation at home is different. At the end of 9, the number of breeding sows was down 10.7% year on year, but slaughter numbers were still up 1.4% in the first three quarters. Sow numbers are falling, but slaughter numbers have not yet declined.
In the downturn, contracts and cash are the first to dry up.
A briefing to banks by the UK National Pig Association (NPA) and the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) noted that, in the association’s most recent member survey, nearly half of respondents had been notified by slaughter companies that some or all of their contracts were being terminated, with 73% considering reducing their herds or leaving the industry.
One production cycle takes about 10 months, and some producers have received only 6 months’ notice.
The pigs are still in the pens, but the contract has already fallen through.
Who can hold on this round?
Prices have fallen worldwide, and the reasons are shared: production increased across the board over the past two years, demand failed to keep up, feed became more expensive, and exports faced one barrier after another.
In this market, how much you lose depends not on who is better at selling hogs, but on whose supply contracts first. The U.S. breeding-hog inventory has basically only declined over the past several years, temporarily staying near the break-even line; domestically, the number of sows is falling, but market hog shipments have not yet declined, so prices have not yet bottomed out.
The situation in the UK shows that, when conditions hit a low point, contracts and cash flow are often the first to come under pressure.
There is no gap in external markets to drive domestic prices up. Whether the industry can weather this round depends on when supply is genuinely reduced.