30% rise in Thai pig prices
Pig price rises in Thailand as live pig exports to Vietnam resumed. The price of live pigs in Thailand increased to $2.6/kg in February 2021, up 30% from December 2020.
The number of sows is expected to be marginally increased to 1.154 million heads in the year, up from 1.15 million heads in the previous year. Similarly, the number of commercial pigs in the year would increase slightly to 22.57 million heads, up from 22.52 million heads, according to a forecast by the Thai Feed Mill Association.
"The rise in numbers of sows and commercial pigs is being driven by increasing production in the southern region of the country. The Thai Swine Raisers Association estimates that the production in the south would increase by 10% in the year to about 88,000 sows and 1.87 million commercial pigs.
The southern region of Thailand has a population of about 9.3 million people or 13% of the country’s 69 million people. Its pig production is far more than the local consumption. As a result, the surplus of pigs in southern Thailand is supplied to abattoirs in Bangkok and peripheral areas. Additionally, some of the pigs produced in the south are also shipped across the borders of Laos and Cambodia to Vietnam. Some traders even load the southern pigs in modified fishing boats to deliver to their customers in Vietnam", according to the latest Genesus market report.
As southern Thailand is declared as an FMD (Foot-and-Mouth Disease) free zone, this makes it impossible for commercial pigs from the other regions of the country to be shipped to the south. Only breeding pigs are allowed to move to the south, but with a tight control by the Department of Livestock Development.
Relatively free from competition, pig production system in the south is undeveloped, compared with the other regions of Thailand. Here pigs are largely raised in open houses situated underneath rubber and oil palm plantations. However, there are a few large-scale, modern farms in the south, most of them belong to national livestock firms and affluent local entrepreneurs such as CP Group, Betagro, Trang Wattana Farm and Farmmesh Southern.
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