As many as half of China's breeding pigs have either died from African swine fever or have been slaughtered because of the spreading disease, twice as many as officially acknowledged, according to the estimates of four people who supply large farms.
While other estimates are more conservative, the plunge in the number of sows is poised to leave a large hole in the supply of the country's favorite meat, pushing up food prices and devastating livelihoods in a rural economy that includes 40 million pig farmers.
"Something like 50 percent of sows are dead," said Edgar Wayne Johnson, a veterinarian who has spent 14 years in China and founded Enable Agricultural Technology Consulting, a Beijing-based farm services firm with clients across the country.