Pig prices fall below 5 yuan, hitting a historic low, with the average wholesale price of pork declining for seven consecutive weeks.

“Pork is getting cheaper—its original price was 5.99 yuan per jin, and now it’s 20% off.”

“It’s already not even 5 yuan now; I haven’t bought pork this cheap in years”……

Recently, news that hog prices have continued to fall has drawn attention.

On March 23, Zhuochuang Information monitored the national average transaction price of lean-meat-type live hogs at 9.71 yuan per kilogram (i.e., falling below 5 yuan per jin), a historical low. At the same time, the main contract of live hog futures fell to 9,815 yuan per ton during intraday trading on March 27, which is also a historical low for this futures product since it was listed in January 2021.

According to additional disclosures by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, based on a weekly price trend monitoring report for national agricultural product wholesale markets, since the week of January 29, 2026, the wholesale average price of pork has declined for seven consecutive weeks. Specifically, in the week of March 20 to 26, 2026, the wholesale average price of pork was 15.84 yuan per kilogram, down 23.4% year on year; compared with the week of January 23 to 29, 2026, it fell by 14.88%.

Data from the National Key Agricultural Product Market Information Platform of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs shows that, as of March 26, the factory-gate price index for lean-type slaughter-ready carcass pigs has fallen to a new low since the same period in 2024.

Data from the China Hog Breeding Network shows that on March 27, the national ex-farm average price of hogs (three-variable type) fell to 10.16 yuan per kilogram. It is reported that in the Northwest region, prices have already fallen below 9 yuan per kilogram across the board.

It is worth noting that hog prices are currently at a very critical level. Based on aggregated price data from multiple sources, including the National Bureau of Statistics and China Animal Husbandry Network, domestic hog prices in 2009, 2014, 2018, and 2021 had all fallen to around 10 yuan per kilogram, and all of them were cyclical “major lows” lasting three to four years.

The difference is that since 2021, domestic hog farming has become more large-scale and production efficiency has improved significantly. Capacity has been reduced slowly, and supply and demand rebalancing still has not been completed to this day; in the medium to long term, it remains hard to say that hog prices will reverse.

Source: 21st Century Business Herald

Editor: Di Haizhou

Responsible editor: Ji Yi

【Source: Ai Jinan】