Our province launches eight major measures to ensure hog production and supply.

    To stabilize hog production and ensure market supply, with the approval of the Provincial People's Government, the General Office of the Provincial People's Government recently issued the Notice on Further Promoting Hog Production and Ensuring Market Supply (Zhejiang Provincial Government Office Document〔2019〕No.44, hereinafter referred to as the "Notice").

The first measure is to strictly implement the mayor responsibility system for the “vegetable basket”. It clarifies the territorial responsibility of local governments to ensure the safe and effective supply of pork products. On the premise that breeding does not pollute the environment, local governments are required to promote the quality and quantity improvement of animal husbandry in line with the national target of raising the pork self-sufficiency rate and the development direction of high quality, high standards, large scale and ecological operation. They shall improve the connection between production and marketing, as well as the reserve and release of frozen pork, so as to ensure both epidemic prevention and control and meat supply, and promote both epidemic control and the healthy development of the industry.

The second measure is to actively develop green hog breeding. It further emphasizes that pollution control facilities for breeding should match the breeding scale. Breeders may determine their breeding scale on their own without causing environmental pollution. Relevant departments shall properly carry out environmental impact assessment acceptance, animal epidemic prevention, breeding stock introduction and other work to speed up the release of potential production capacity. A number of large and medium-sized digital ranches and beautiful ranches will be built on planned barren hills, slopes and tidal flats, with priority given to the approval of required facility land. Meanwhile, to address the reluctance to raise hogs, large-scale hog farms and idle farms with sound epidemic prevention conditions and surplus manure treatment capacity will be supported to introduce breeding stock from provincial breeding farms. For breeding stock introduced by large-scale farms from provincial breeding farms between July 1 and December 31, 2019, the provincial finance will provide a temporary subsidy of 500 yuan per head (subsidies may also be granted for approved introductions from outside the province if the province cannot provide one-off supply).

The third measure is to optimize the industrial layout and structure. Starting with optimizing the layout of the hog industry, the structure of meat supply, production and operation modes, and business entities, it requires regions with low self-sufficiency rates to speed up the construction of new large-scale ecological farms, support the development of high-quality poultry, and support modern hog breeding entities to invest in the hog industry.

The fourth measure is to comprehensively improve the biosafety level of hog farms. To further enhance the biosafety capacity of large-scale hog farms and slaughtering enterprises, the province has launched the “100 Farms Leading, 1,000 Farms Upgrading” campaign for strict whole-chain supervision of the hog industry. Based on an inventory of the biosafety status of existing hog farms, all localities shall formulate customized prevention and control measures (“one policy for one farm”) by July 2019, upgrade facilities and equipment, and implement epidemic prevention systems, ensuring the transformation and upgrading of more than 1,000 hog farms within the year. Farms and slaughtering enterprises included in the action plan that meet construction standards by the end of the year will receive subsidies from the provincial finance in the form of “rewards instead of subsidies”. To promptly eliminate risks and establish a regional joint prevention and control mechanism for hog breeding entities, large-scale farms are required to conduct African swine fever self-inspection, and inspections will be intensified within a 3-kilometer radius of original breeding farms and large-scale farms, as well as in intensive hog breeding areas. The provincial finance will allocate special funds to support key hog-producing counties in building infrastructure such as high-temperature vehicle washing and disinfection centers and regional biosafety isolation zones, and subsidize large-scale farms with more than 5,000 hogs for full African swine fever self-inspection. Meanwhile, clear requirements are set for the whole-chain supervision of kitchen waste treatment and the prohibition of feeding such waste to hogs.

The fifth measure is to fully implement the African swine fever self-inspection and official veterinarian deployment system in the slaughtering sector. In accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, slaughtering enterprises that fail to meet hog slaughtering standards and still do not meet the requirements after rectification shall have their designated slaughtering qualifications revoked in accordance with the law by July 1, 2019. To improve the biosafety level and quality control capacity of slaughtering enterprises, guidance and support will be provided to speed up facility renovation and establish self-inspection systems for banned substances such as “lean meat powder” and African swine fever. To strengthen supervision capacity, official veterinarians stationed at slaughtering enterprises will be reinforced, and training for quarantine personnel will be enhanced.

The sixth measure is to effectively manage frozen pork reserves. Local governments are held territorially responsible for the regulation of frozen pork reserves. Based on comprehensive consideration of market price changes and supply-demand conditions, localities shall conduct timely procurement and storage of frozen pork to maintain necessary market regulation capacity. The responsibilities and division of labor among the development and reform, agriculture and rural affairs, and grain and materials departments are further clarified, requiring strengthened coordination to implement the reserve, release and other work, ensuring the stable operation of the hog market and prices.

The seventh measure is to strengthen the connection between production and marketing and the construction of cold chain systems. Taking full advantage of local resource endowments, regions with insufficient hog production capacity will be supported to establish “vegetable basket” hog bases in qualified areas to boost pork supply. Zhejiang-based enterprises will be supported in establishing slaughtering enterprises outside the province. Slaughtering enterprises, meat circulation enterprises and agricultural markets will be encouraged to jointly build cold chain systems, accelerating the shift from “transporting live hogs” to “transporting pork”. Point-to-point transportation management of hogs and pork products will be strictly enforced, the transportation of breeding stock and piglets further regulated, and hog transport vehicles better managed. Supervision and inspection of the pork circulation sector will be strengthened, with intensified routine oversight of pork production and processing enterprises, agricultural produce markets, catering service units, shopping malls, supermarkets and their own or leased cold storage facilities.

The eighth measure is to implement fiscal, financial and insurance support policies. Hog production, epidemic prevention and market supply will be supported through multiple channels including fiscal funding, finance and insurance. Financial departments at all levels will strengthen the coordination and integration of existing funds to support large-scale farms in improving biosafety, tapping production potential, protecting breeding stock capacity, and strengthening animal epidemic prevention infrastructure and compulsory culling subsidies for African swine fever and other diseases. To effectively ease loan difficulties and repayment pressure for large-scale hog farms, as well as feed and slaughtering enterprises closely related to hog production, credit support will be enhanced, credit enhancement methods innovated, and a living body mortgage model represented by hogs promoted through government-bank-insurance cooperation (pilots have been launched in Quzhou and Jinhua at the provincial level). Policy-based agricultural credit guarantee services for hog breeding will be improved to expand financing channels. The provincial and above-level finance will provide interest subsidies for breeding farms and large-scale farms with an annual output of more than 5,000 hogs, and local finance is required to provide interest subsidies according to fiscal capacity. In response to the low insured amount of current policy-based hog insurance, coverage for breeding sows and fattening hogs will be improved with appropriately raised insured amounts. Government-culled infected hogs will be included in the liability coverage of policy-based insurance for breeding sows and hogs, and the difference between government culling subsidies and adjusted policy-based insurance insured amounts will be covered by insurance claims, reducing breeding risks. The price subsidy mechanism for the basic living expenses of people in difficulty will be implemented, with timely subsidies issued once the conditions are met to safeguard their basic livelihood.

Next, the Department of Finance of the Province and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the Province will jointly issue implementation regulations to refine policies such as financial subsidies, and further ensure the thorough implementation of the document.