The national stock of reproductive sows continued to rise in May, but 50% of that was three-way crossbred sows for breeding

According to BOABC’s monitoring data, China’s production capacity of reproductive sows has started to pick up since the beginning of January 2020, and increased to about 23.71 million head, a month-on-month growth of 6.5%. However, 50% of the stock in May was three-way crossbred sows for breeding.
The detailed data by regions for May is as follows
(1) The stock of reproductive sows in the Northeast increased by 4.1% month-on-month and 20% year-on-year.
(2) The figure for North China rose by 3.4% month-on-month, and dropped by 18% year-on-year.
(3) The figure for Central China climbed by 2.1% month-on-month, and fell by 25% year-on-year.
(4) The figure for East China grew by 1.1% month-on-month, and declined by 11% year-on-year.
(5) The figure for South China rose by 2.2% month-on-month, and decreased by 10% year-on-year.
(6) The figure for the Southwest increased by 1.5% month-on-month, and fell by 30% year-on-year.
In the first half of 2020, the national stock of reproductive sows was increasing mainly due to the growth in the number of three-way crossbred sows. It’s learned by BOABC that three-way hybrid sows contributed to about 50% of the national stock of reproductive sows.The rapid growth in the stock of three-way hybrid reproductive sows continuously drove the increase in the number of reproductive sows in China.  
At present, it’s still difficult for farms to purchase high-quality two-way crossbred sows, and increasing three-way hybrid sows are left as breeding pigs. It’s learned that three-way hybrid sows contributed to about 70%-80% of replacement gilts in China. Due to the production performance of three-way hybrid sows, the national pig production capacity is hard to recover to the level of 2018 in the next two years.