WITH pork supplies tumbling due to the spread of African swine fever and prices at record highs, the government is encouraging farmers to breed quickly. “Fine pig sperm” should be used for artificial insemination, authorities said.

But boars in China tend to produce fewer piglets than their counterparts in the West. Those in Denmark produce an average 27 to 28 offspring per sow a year, compared with about 19 in China, according to Lin Guofa, a senior analyst at Bric Agriculture Group.

That means China will need to import more pig sperm to quickly boost hog herds that have fallen by a third from a year ago. So far this year, China has bought about 23 kilograms of overseas animal semen excluding those of bovine in the first seven months of this year, according to customs data. That’s down from 53 kilograms in 2018.

“Semen imports will surely increase due to the domestic shortage in China’s breeding stock,” said Ma Chuang, deputy secretary general at the Chinese Association of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine.

China usually imports pig sperm from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark, Ma said.(SD-Agencies)