C.P. Pokphand Co., one of China’s top five pig producers, is speeding up expansion of its business, said the company’s chief executive, after a year-long outbreak of disease affected an industry worth US$140 billion.

The company, part of Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group, plans to raise 10 million pigs a year by 2021, up from 4 million currently, Bai Shanlin said yesterday.

That comes after an epidemic of African swine fever broke out in China in mid-2018, decimating the world’s largest hog herd and reducing its breeding population by 37 percent since the first cases were discovered, according to official data.

The virus infected several of C.P’s farms, with some of its smaller, older farms susceptible to the virus because they did not have adequate biosecurity, such as truck washing facilities, said Bai.

The company, which started out as a feed supplier, moved into pig production about 10 years ago.

C.P. is China’s fourth or fifth largest producer but accounts for only a tiny share of the 700 million pigs slaughtered every year.

More than 90 percent of China’s farms still need to be upgraded, Bai believes.

C.P. lost “less than 10 percent” of its sows to African swine fever, leaving it with 250,000 productive sows, he said.

The infected farms will be repopulated soon, starting with a farm in Shenyang in Liaoning next month, followed by another in Dongying in Shandong Province, he said. Both of the farms previously had 2,400 breeding sows.(SD-Agencies)