Irish pigmeat sold around the world

Pigmeat is the third most valuable category of Irish agri-food exports, worth €327m up to the end of August 2024, a 5% increase on the same period last year.

The volume of pigmeat exported was 132,823t, up 5% on the 126,416t exported in the same period in 2023.

As well as pigmeat, there was a significant live export business with 365,000 pigs exported in 2023 to Northern Ireland for processing.

In terms of volume, China is Ireland’s largest export market for pigmeat. Up to the end of July, almost 39,000t of Irish pigmeat was exported to China.

This was worth €64.7m, which is less than the value of exports to the EU, which were €73.7m in this period on a lower volume of product, 32,293t.

This reflects the fact that the lower-value parts of the pig carcase are sold to China where the return is €1,659/t, just marginally higher than Philippines, where Irish pigmeat prices on average achieved €1,626/t in the first eight months of 2024.

At the other end of the scale, Japan was the highest-value export market per tonne of pigmeat so far this year, with the 5,900t exported to that market returning a value of €22.6m or €3,828/t.

The US may be a relatively low volume market at 4,279t but it is high value returning €16.1m, or €3,756/t. This is similar to Northern Ireland where the value of €3,726/t is achieved on sales of 10,712t of pigmeat.

Britain is second only to China as the highest-value market for Irish pigmeat exports with a total value of €59.9m, or €3,726/t.

Irish pigmeat, along with dairy, is the most diversified when it comes to export markets. Australia isn’t a market for Irish agri-food exports with the exception of pigmeat. Sales there were €20.8m up to the end of August on 6,268t of pigmeat.

Irish pigmeat competes in global markets but, overall, Ireland is a small player in the international market.

The USDA estimates that the total volume of pigmeat produced this year will be 116m tonnes, with 56.7m tonnes of this produced in China.

The US is the next largest producer with 12.7m tonnes, while Brazil and Russia will each produce over 4m tonnes. The combined EU pigmeat output is estimated at 21.2m tonnes.

The USDA estimates that 10.3m tonnes of pigmeat will be traded this year with Mexico and Japan the largest importers taking 1.4m tonnes each, followed by China which will import 1.3m tonnes.

China

China is particularly interesting because, as recently as 2020, China imported 5.3m tonnes – this was because domestic production was decimated by African swine fever, but the herd has been successfully rebuilt since then.

South Korea is the next most important market, taking 785,000t followed by the UK, which will import an estimated 755,000t. All weights are carcase weight equivalent.

The role of pigmeat in the Irish agri-food industry is the opposite of all the other major categories, as just a few hundred pig producers support several thousand downstream jobs in processing and generate the third highest agri-food export value.

Historically, pig rearing was typically part of a mixed farm business but it is becoming ever more specialised with exceptional levels of biosecurity required to prevent disease and maintain productivity.

Given the costs involved and volatile markets, it is also becoming increasingly integrated with processors sharing the risk with primary producers.