Early in 10, Jinjizhinong issued a brief personnel announcement: Vice President Wang Honghe resigned for personal reasons and, following his resignation, would no longer hold any position at the company or its subsidiaries. His scheduled term was set to run until 2027-6-27, but had not yet expired. In the announcement, the company’s board of directors expressed its gratitude for his work coordinating engineering construction, operations and maintenance, and business support during his tenure. Born in 1973, this longtime Jinjizhinong employee joined Jinjizhi Real Estate in 2002, progressing from engineering supervisor to group vice president. In 2018, he moved into the Jinjizhinong system, and from 2020-12 served as vice president while also serving as general manager of Jinjizhinong Real Estate Development Co., Ltd. In 2025, his compensation was 129 ten thousand yuan, ranking fifth among the core management team. His departure was not an isolated event.
I. A personnel change at one company reflects the pace of the entire industry
Wang Honghe’s resignation has attracted attention because it took place at a particular moment. At the end of 4 this year, Jinjizhinong had just completed a change of president: former chairman Chen Jiarong stopped concurrently serving as president, and the company brought in Ma Changwei as its new president. Ma Changwei’s background is unusual in the agricultural and animal-husbandry sector. He was a co-founder of Alibaba and a core member of Taobao’s founding team, responsible for user experience design at Alibaba for more than fourteen years before moving into investment. Naturally, attention turned to an internet-industry veteran taking charge of a company whose main business is pig farming. Shortly after taking office, the company invested in and acquired a stake in the robotics sector, and also established a subsidiary related to intelligent computing. Brokerage research reports view this as an attempt to explore a new direction amid pressure on the main business.
As for Wang Honghe’s departure, judging from his more than twenty-year career within the Kingkey group, it is more likely related to adjustments in the real estate segment. His core role has consistently been as a real estate operator within the Kingkey group, and he still serves as the legal representative of four core companies affiliated with Kingkey Smart Agriculture, including a real estate development company, an industrial park development company, and a hotel management company. In other words, the direct impact of his departure may be felt more in the pace of real estate business development and the allocation of existing assets than in the day-to-day operations of the pig farming segment.
II. A loss of nearly five hundred million in half a year—this is not just one company's issue.
Move your attention away from the personnel announcement and look at the numbers, and things become much clearer. In the first half of 2026, Jingji Zhinong recorded operating revenue of 21.30 billion yuan and a net loss attributable to the parent company of 4.89 billion yuan, compared with a profit of 2.26 billion yuan in the same period last year. Revenue from its pig business was 15.28 billion yuan, with a gross margin of negative fifteen point three six percent, while operating costs rose by nearly twenty percent year on year. In the first half, the company sold 112.08 hundred thousand pigs; the more it sold, the greater its loss on the books. In month 8, the average selling price of commercial fattening pigs recovered to 11.50 yuan per kilogram, up from 10.09 yuan in month 6, but remained below the cost line.
This is not a situation unique to Jingji Zhinong. In the first half of the year, Muyuan reported losses of more than twelve hundred million yuan, and Wens reported losses of more than one thousand million yuan. The entire livestock farming sector was generally operating at a loss. Hog prices hit a period low in month 4,Self-bred and self-raisedLosses per head once widened to 252 yuan. Capacity reduction in the industry is accelerating, but no one can give an accurate answer as to when the turning point in hog prices will come. Against this backdrop, personnel changes at listed hog companies are no longer stories about individual companies, but part of a round of adjustments with a shared rhythm.
III. Shennong Group’s Dun Can leaves: a veteran who rose through the ranks from a pig farm
In late 9 month, Shennong Group announced that company director and deputy general manager Dun Can had resigned from all positions for personal reasons. The resignation took effect on 9 month 18, while the original term was due to run until 2028 year 5 month, making this an early departure. Dun Can was a significant figure in the pig farming industry. He joined Shennong Group in 2011 and held the qualification of licensed assistant veterinarian. Starting as a technical services manager, he went on to serve as a pig farm manager and regional general manager, and later became general manager of the farming business division. In 2021, he was elected as a director of the listed company. In 2023, he officially became deputy general manager, while also holding the dual responsibilities of group deputy general manager and general manager of the farming business division. He managed several large-scale breeding farms and was also responsible for the operations and management of subsidiaries in places such as Guangxi.
Among Dun Can’s public appearances, family farms are the subject he talks about most. At the end of 2024, he mentioned in an interview that, that year, pigs marketed under the family farm model accounted for around seven tenths of the total, and that the proportion of self-breeding and self-raising would continue to be reduced. By 2024 year 9 month, there were more than 530 family farms working with Shennong. He put it directly at the time: increasing capacity at family farms would be the main driver of Shennong’s expansion. Under this model, farmers build pig housing and manage production according to the company’s standards; the company provides piglets, feed, veterinary medicines, and technical guidance, and ultimately collects the pigs and settles accounts centrally. As Dun Can put it, the company bears the risk of market fluctuations, while farmers bear the risks of production management, with each party fulfilling its respective role.
Dun Can’s departure happened just as Shennong Group reported a loss of 8.09 billion yuan in the first half of the year. For those following the company, the departure of a veteran who had overseen production in its livestock farming division for more than ten years at this point may raise some questions. The announcement cited personal reasons but gave no further details.
Four, proactive adjustments and passive changes intertwine
Personnel changes at pig farming companies since 9 can broadly be divided into two types. One is proactive adjustment: changing personnel to change the pace. On 9 18, Xiangjia Co., Ltd. announced that Chairman Yu Ziwen had resigned as president but would continue serving as chairman. Zhao Kecheng was appointed as the new president. The company told the media that the adjustment was primarily motivated by a desire to make the management team younger. In early 9, Aonong Biotechnology changed its board secretary. After resigning as board secretary, Peng Jiang continued as vice president and also took over as general manager of the feed division, a position previously held by the company’s founder, Wu Youlin.
Another was not a voluntary choice. On 9 month 7, Tiankang Bio announced that the company's director and deputy general manager Huang Haibin had passed away, aged 58. On 9 month 23, Huatuan Co., Ltd. announced that its deputy general manager Zhu Wenwen had been placed under compulsory measures by the Jiaojiang Branch of the Taizhou Public Security Bureau. The case is still under investigation. The company said it had not received any relevant notice from the public security authorities and had immediately arranged for other personnel to take over Zhu Wenwen's duties. Shortly after Dun Can's departure, Shennong Group also disclosed that its controlling shareholder and actual controller, He Zuxun, was involved in divorce proceedings. His wife had filed a lawsuit with the court seeking to dissolve the marriage and divide the property.
These changes varied in nature: some were proactive business decisions, some were unexpected, and some involved personal matters. But their clustering within the same period was related to the industry's position in the cycle. Hog prices had remained low for a long time, costs stayed high, and companies made various adjustments to their team structures—some to adopt a different approach, others in response to sudden circumstances.
Five: The pig cycle isn’t about who becomes president; it’s about who raises pigs well.
For those working on pig farms, announcements from listed companies may seem somewhat removed from day-to-day production, but the personnel changes behind those announcements eventually affect production in various ways. New management may bring new performance assessment methods, new cost targets, and new partnership models. Shennong Group’s family farm model was promoted during Dun Can’s tenure. Whether his departure will affect the pace of this initiative is something many partner farmers will be concerned about.
Jingji Zhinong has set a target for its full cost of pig production in 2026 of around 12 yuan per kilogram. Its actual full cost in 3 was approximately 13.3 yuan, and pressure to reduce costs remains. Capacity reductions across the industry are accelerating.Breeding sowsHog inventories are slowly declining, but improvements in farming efficiency have partly offset the impact of shrinking supply, and the turning point in the recovery is still being pushed further out. This autumn, executive changes at pig farming companies are just one aspect of the picture. What will really determine who can make it to the next cycle is still what happens every day on pig farms: whether the herds are healthy, whether feed conversion rates are improving, and whether costs can be brought down a little further. Personnel announcements turn a page, but the hog cycle will not end early just because someone new has become president.