The American meat industry is likely to face a big challenge next year: rising costs due to Chinese competition.
American livestock and poultry producers are getting squeezed from both sides. On one end, feed costs are projected to go up 12 percent in 2021. On the other, China isn't expected to buy as much meat as they have in years past.
“Their hog numbers are growing, so they’re buying more feed from us, and the expectation is that in the coming months, they may buy less pork from us, because they are starting to grow more of their own,” Texas A&M Professor David Anderson, an agricultural economist, told KTRH.
Anderson says it comes a tough time. Producers in the United States have already been hit hard economically due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, China is recovering after its hog herd was decimated in 2018 by the African swine fever.