Beef prices hit a record high of recent years, and are predicted to rise to a all-time new high before the Spring Festival

By CnAgri2018-11-29 15:10:33 Print According to BOABC’s monitoring data, recent retail prices of beef have been increasing slightly, and are generally higher compared with those in the same period in the past several years. In this week, the retail price of beef was up to 66.73yuan/kg, which increased by 0.75% from the previous month and by 5.17% from the previous year, hitting a new high in recent years. The major reasons are as follows:
 
On the one hand, the outbreak of African swine fever is conductive to the growth of beef consumption. Due to the outbreak of African swine fever in domestic in August, Chinese residents’ propensity to consume pork is low, which promotes the consumption of beef and results in rise in beef prices. At present, the control and prevention of African swine fever in Chinese mainland hasn’t achieved obvious effect yet, consumers’ enthusiasm on pork consumption is not high. The Spring Festival is coming, the consumption of beef may increase largely.
On the other hand, beef supply exceeds demand in the mainland of China. Small farming households are the main part of beef cattle raising in China with backward production mode. The production efficiency is low, and beef production grows slowly. In recent years, consumers raise higher demands on beef consumption and quality, but beef production is difficult to meet market demands. Therefore, China has been increasing imports of beef in recent years, from less than 10,000 tons in 2008 to over 600,000 tons now. The big gap between demand and supply of beef in China has lifted beef prices, which are higher compared with the same period of previous years.
 
Beef prices may continue to rise or skyrocket before the Spring Festival, and will be about 5% higher than that in the same period in 2017.