The harder you work, the less fortunate you are: In March, pig prices fell below 9 yuan per kilogram, and one listed pig company sold less than 2 million yuan in a month.

On the evening of April 7, 2026, multiple listed pig farming companies simultaneously disclosed their March sales data.

Juxing Agriculture and Animal Husbandry (603477.SH) announced that in March 2026, the sales volume of commercial fat pigs was 456.8k heads, a year-on-year increase of 40.03%, but sales revenue was only 620 million yuan; Dabeinong (002385.SZ) sold 486.9k pigs in March, a month-on-month increase of 23.92%, with sales revenue of 550 million yuan, but a year-on-year decrease of 10.42%; Shennong Group (605296.SH) saw a 28.13% year-on-year increase in commercial pig sales to 316.6k heads, but sales revenue declined 9.91% year-on-year to 409 million yuan.

Zhenghong Technology (000702.SZ) faced an even tougher situation, with pig sales in March only reaching 1.7k heads, and sales revenue of 1.9454 million yuan, a sharp month-on-month drop of 45.37% and 60.88%, respectively, and a more than 70% plunge year-on-year. The company admitted that the main reason was a decrease in pig output.

The combination of rising volume and falling prices is becoming a common feature in the March sales data of pig companies. As an industry leader, Wen’s Shares (300498.SZ) is also not immune to this trend. Data shows that in March, the company sold 3.6828 million pigs, generating 456.8k yuan in revenue, with month-on-month increases of 36.55% and 22.04%, respectively, but the average price of fat pigs dropped by 32.01% year-on-year to 10.11 yuan per kilogram.

Wen’s Shares stated that the month-on-month increase in sales volume was due to increased seedling planting in the previous period, while the year-on-year decline in average price was influenced by changes in the domestic pig market.

In reality, the actual market conditions are far more difficult than the financial data of these companies suggest.

Continuing with Wen’s Shares’ monthly sales detail as a reference, its average price of fat pigs has fallen from 14.87 yuan per kilogram in March 2025 to 10.11 yuan per kilogram in March 2026, a decline of over 30% within a year.

Correspondingly, multiple industry data points previously indicated that, based on the national average, the current full-cost of pig farming remains around 13 yuan per kilogram. Calculated at a slaughter weight of 125 kilograms, this implies an average loss of about 450 yuan per pig. Even among the industry’s most cost-efficient companies, Muyuan Foods (002714.SZ), the full-year 2025 cost was approximately 12 yuan per kilogram, which, given current pig prices, also cannot avoid losses.

The trend of increasing sales losses is turning from market concern into reality. Even leading companies like Wen’s and Muyuan have to face the red figures on their books in the brutal reality of pig prices falling below cost. As of the week of April 6, the national pig price had already fallen below 9 yuan per kilogram, with the average loss per pig in self-breeding and self-rearing approaching 400 yuan, and the entire industry plunged into deep losses. According to data from Yongyi Consulting, during the week of March 27 to April 2, the national pig price was only 8.95 yuan per kilogram, with an average loss of 381.52 yuan per pig in self-breeding and self-rearing. This has been a loss-making period for eight consecutive weeks, hitting a new low since 2019 and falling below the nearly ten-year low of 9.92 yuan per kilogram in Q2 2018.

However, in March 2026, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs convened seven large pig breeding enterprises and proposed to adjust the breeding sow inventory target downward to around 36.5 million heads, about 7.9% lower than the current level, indicating a significant increase in capacity regulation. Meanwhile, in the capital market on April 7, pig company stocks led a rebound. Tonghuashun (300033.SZ)'s pork sector rose 2.92% throughout the day, with Huatong Co., Ltd. (002840.SZ) hitting the daily limit, and Juxing Agriculture and Animal Husbandry and Dayu Biological (920970.BJ) rising over 7%. Stocks such as Tiankang Biological (002100.SZ), Longda Food (002726.SZ), and Delis (002330.SZ) also followed the upward trend.