I do analysis about Chinese agriculture and commodity markets.
Dublin
Joined March 2025
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In fairness, not all 'disease pressure' is ASF. But PED cases aren't dramatically higher, and people might have a reason to not write 非洲猪瘟 on wechat.
We have a situation where large companies are telling investors about their ASF outbreaks, they're required to report production data to the Ministry of Agriculture, and the ministry reports 0 cases of ASF for the past 14 month.
This tensions becomes worse because the government is actively trying to shrink the hog herd. That means large companies are now required to report more data to the Ministry of Agriculture, including annual production plans and their situation to the ministry.
But Chinese publicly traded hog firms tell investors things like "ASF has become normalised; every winter the northern epidemic may be somewhat more severe" or "Q1 this year survival rates were hit by ASF"
But the diease pressure isn't bad, officially. In the past 42 months, China has only had African Swine Fever in one month. And, again, *officially* has had no cases in over a year
Historically, really low prices for a long period of time has meant farms with liquidity problems will probably reduce biosecurity costs.
Of course, there is oversupply. And weakness in demand as consumers continue a multi-year trend toward other proteins.
But we're going into winter, and disease pressure is higher, so farmers are selling.
Chinese live hog prices continue to collapse. Cash prices are likely to take out yearly lows. Which are also probably decade lows.
Very happy to present today at USSEC's conference in Tokyo today. I talked about US, Brazil, and Argentina supply, and what the market is missing in terms of China
Some interesting alignment between the US and China. Xi is often quoted as saying “Food security is an important foundation of national security.”
Food security IS national security!
Our sovereignty depends on our ability to feed ourselves. We cannot continue relying on foreign nations to supply the fertilizer our farmers need to grow America's food.
Through the FIELDS Program, we're investing in 22 shovel-ready projects across 16 states to bring fertilizer manufacturing back home and strengthen America's agricultural independence. 🇺🇸🌾
The YouTube algo is amazing. Underground Russian EDM music and then Nickleback.
The issue is, that is what I want.
It's hard to see a situation where China meaningfully reduces its import depedence on soybeans when farmers still opt to plant corn with $317/acre subsidies. And the soybean subsidy went up this year.
In 2025, farmers in NE China got $317/acre for planting soybeans. That had been steady for 3 years and farmers in northeast China decided to plant corn.
China's Ministry of Ag cut its China soybean production estimate in October. It's unclear why USDA is still at 21 million tons.
Going to Tokyo next week for a conference. Was also supposed to be going to China. China wouldn't give me a visa.
Since living in Ireland, the Irish gov is making me wait 2 more years for citizenship. China won't give me a visa.
The DW piece is suprisingly well-balanced and isn't framed negatively. It just explains why China cares about food security, and what actions the government is taking because of those concerns.
