Feed Conversion Ratio, Profitability and Farm Size in China’s Pig Industry

Dan Wang, Jikun Huang and Brian Lohmar

No 212621, 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy from International Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: The paper is based on a survey we have designed to document the feeding practices in China’s hog industry. We estimate the live weight FCR to be 2.99, in which commercialized farms (>500 head/year) are the most efficient with FCR of 2.73, followed by specialized farms (50-499 head/year) of 2.90, and the main inefficiency in feeding comes from backyard (<10 head/year) and small household farms (10-49 head/year), with FCRs to be 3.03 and 3.99.The FCRs and the farm size have a clear inverse relationship, but the correlation between profit and farm size is not significant, suggesting further structural change toward larger operations will be slow. In addition, managerial variables have significant impacts on FCRs: participating training in disease control and using compound feed in the grower/finisher phase can lower the FCR significantly.

Keywords: Farm Management; Land Economics/Use; Livestock Production/Industries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iaae15:212621

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.212621

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