【Shandong Ruihong Betaine Special】 7 years, 10.34 million households exited! Small and medium-sized farmers are accelerating their withdrawal…

(Source: Boya Hexun)

Currently, China’s live pig prices have fallen to their lowest in nearly 7 years, the pig-to-grain ratio has dropped below the warning line, the industry is in deep losses, and small- and medium-sized farmers are under severe pressure, with exit rates accelerating. Leading pig enterprises are actively responding with their capital and technological advantages, while small- and medium-sized farmers are caught in the dilemma of “more farming, more losses.” Faced with this situation, what is the future for small and medium pig farms?

“Pig prices have dropped to their lowest in nearly 7 years, now selling a pig results in a loss of nearly 500 yuan,” said Lao Wang, a pig farmer in Shandong with over 20 years of experience.

Lao Wang calculated: based on a slaughter weight of 240 jin, each additional jin of pork consumes 3.6 jin of feed, so a pig requires a total of 864 jin of feed throughout its life. The current compound feed price is 1.55 yuan per jin, meaning feed costs alone amount to 1,339 yuan. Lao Wang adopts a self-breeding and self-rearing model; each commercial pig also needs to share about 200 yuan for the feed and health costs of the old sow, plus miscellaneous expenses such as water, electricity, veterinary drugs, vaccines, etc., totaling about 100 yuan per pig. The total cost per pig reaches 1,639 yuan.

He said that, based on the average pig price of about 4.8 yuan per jin on April 1, each pig incurs a loss of about 487 yuan.

Lao Wang currently raises over 200 pigs, relying on this for his livelihood. “Now I can only cull and hope for a price rebound,” Lao Wang said helplessly. However, culling still means consuming a large amount of feed daily, which instead pushes him into the trap of “more raising, more losses.”

Lao Wang is just one example among many small and medium pig farmers. According to monitoring data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, in the fourth week of March, the national average pig price had fallen to 5.34 yuan per jin, down 3.3% month-on-month and 29.8% year-on-year, hitting a new low since 2019.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics on April 4, data from monitoring prices of 50 key production materials across nine major categories in the circulation field showed that, compared to mid-March, the prices of 31 products increased, 16 decreased, and 3 remained stable. Among them, the price of pigs (external three-way cross) was 9.5 yuan per kilogram, down 5.9% month-on-month.

Several industry experts stated that currently, the domestic pig market is oversupplied, the inventory of breeding sows is slow to decline, and combined with weak pork consumption demand, pig prices remain depressed and under long-term pressure. Large-scale breeding enterprises, with ample capital, technology, and scale advantages, can sustain normal production even with long-term losses; whereas small- and medium-sized farmers, with limited funds and weaker risk resistance, are the main groups being “cleared out” during capacity reduction.

Small and medium-sized farmers are accelerating their exit; by the end of 2025, the number of scattered pig farmers will decrease by 38.2% compared to 2018.

“Not only are pig prices low now, but feed prices are also rising sharply, further increasing breeding costs,” Lao Wang said.

The pig-to-grain ratio has always been a “barometer” of industry profitability. According to data from the Price Monitoring Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, in the fourth week of March, the national pig-to-grain ratio fell to 4.23:1, a new low since 2019, far below the primary warning line of 5:1.

Lao Wang explained that the rise in feed raw material prices is mainly influenced by international geopolitical conflicts, which increase global trade uncertainties, directly pushing up the prices of core feed ingredients like corn and soybean meal. This price increase quickly transmits to the breeding sector, further raising farmers’ costs.

Under the dual pressure of falling pig prices and rising feed costs, pig farmers are generally in a loss situation. According to Boya Hexun data, the loss cycle for purchasing piglets externally has reached 13 months, and self-breeding and rearing losses have lasted 6 months; currently, the loss per pig for self-breeding and rearing has exceeded 340 yuan, the lowest in 35 months.

Recently, reporters visited several small and medium pig farmers in major production areas such as Shandong, Henan, and Sichuan, discovering that they are all facing varying degrees of losses. Their responses vary: some helplessly sell pigs at low prices at a loss, some hold onto pigs in hope of a price rebound, and others directly cull sows and exit the industry altogether, turning to other livelihoods.

The plight of small and medium farmers is not an isolated case; even leading listed pig companies are not immune. According to their 2025 annual reports, Muyuan Foods’ net profit attributable to shareholders was 15.81B yuan, down 16.45%; Wens Foodstuffs’ net profit was 5.24B yuan, down 43.59%; New Hope expects a net loss of 1.5 to 1.8 billion yuan in 2025, turning from profit to loss.

In response to market fluctuations, leading pig companies are actively leveraging their advantages with targeted measures. Muyuan said it is reducing costs through pig breeding, nutritional formulas, health management, and intelligent technology; Wens Foodstuffs stated that its dual operations in pigs and chickens help hedge against price fluctuations in a single sector…

Compared to them, small and medium farmers are showing an accelerating exit trend. Data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs shows that in 2018, the nationwide scale of pig farming was 49.1%, which increased to about 73.0% by 2025; meanwhile, industry concentration has significantly increased. In 2018, the top 10 pig-raising companies accounted for only 8.1% of total slaughter volume nationwide, rising to 29.7% in 2025.

According to estimates by the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, based on data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, by the end of 2025, the number of scattered pig farmers nationwide will be about 16.72 million, a 38.2% decrease from 27.06 million at the end of 2018. The faster exit rate puts pressure on farmers’ employment and income.

What is the future for small and medium farmers? Policy support + developing specialized farming paths.

Wang Zuli, a researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development, emphasized that large-scale is the long-term trend for the pig industry, but large-scale does not mean corporate-scale. As an important livelihood industry, pig farming carried by small and medium farmers sustains rural household incomes and rural revitalization, holding irreplaceable social value. Industry development should balance the coordinated growth of large breeding groups and small- and medium-sized farmers.

During the 2026 National Two Sessions, NPC deputy Xie Rupeng stated that every 1% increase in scaled production capacity results in about 3% to 5% of small farmers exiting. Based on the 2025 new pig capacity, this could lead to 500k to 800k small households with fewer than 500 pigs losing their livelihoods annually. Excessive scaling not only squeezes out small farmers but also causes large enterprises to suffer significant losses, flooding the market with low-quality, low-price products.

Faced with these difficulties, what is the way forward for small and medium farmers? Policy responses have already clarified their situation. In November 2025, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs approved the “Opinions on Strengthening Capacity Regulation and Promoting High-Quality Development of the Pig Industry,” which states that while guiding large pig enterprises to improve quality and efficiency and develop steadily, support should also be given to small and medium farms to develop appropriately scaled operations, building a high-quality pig industry with balanced supply and demand and rational scale structure.

Wang Cheng, an expert at the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, believes that, given the increasing financial nature of the pig market, small and medium farmers should reduce costs and avoid following the conventional feed route used by large enterprises. He suggests abandoning traditional corn and soybean meal feed formulas and turning to locally sourced feed. For example, in Jiaodong, processed sweet potato peels, small sweet potato chunks, and fruit residues from food processing companies, after scientific formulation, can fully meet pigs’ growth needs and suit the operational realities of small and medium farms.

In addition to cost reduction and efficiency improvement, Wang Zuli recommends strictly maintaining disease prevention and control, as the risk of disease increases during industry downturns, and stable production is necessary to avoid major losses. Second, exploring cooperative development models—forming cooperatives for unified procurement and technology sharing to enhance bargaining power; using “company + farmers” models to lock in income and reduce market price volatility risks. Furthermore, farmers should adhere to rational culling, selling pigs at standard weights to avoid panic selling or blind culling.

Overall, small and medium farmers need to leverage their advantages, abandon blind followings, actively seek breakthroughs under policy support, respond rationally to market fluctuations, and avoid reckless culling or panic selling. Only by proactively adapting to industry trends and combining policy support with self-rescue can they maintain their survival space amid the wave of scale expansion and achieve sustainable development.

Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Economic Observer, National Bureau of Statistics, China Swine Industry. If infringement occurs, please contact for removal, phone: 0371-63357633.