Layer industry: change bears witness to the future

As a veritable laying hen production country, the breeding method has been dominated by small and medium-sized breeding of less than 10,000 for a long time, and the industrial characteristics of "small-scale and large-scale groups" are prominent. The problems such as overcapacity, weak brooding ability and weak deep processing ability in the process of its development can not be ignored. How to make the layer industry transition to improved breed, specialization, facility and marketization smoothly is a major concern of the industry.

The impact of the "H7N9 incident" in 2013 led to a decline in the stock of laying hens, and the risk of accumulated supply shortages broke out in 2014. After the discovery of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus in the United States, China announced that it would suspend imports of all American poultry, poultry products, and egg products from January 9, 2015. egg prices continued to fall in the first half of this year, and farmers lacked confidence in the future.

A series of events led many people to say, "what's wrong with the laying hen industry?" However, Yang Ning, chief scientist of the national laying hen industrial technology system and professor of the School of Animal Science and Technology of China Agricultural University, who has been engaged in the research on the new technology of animal genetics and breeding and the technological system of poultry production for a long time, believes that although these events are not expected, but they are considered in the coping strategy.

"China produces and consumes about 40% of the world's eggs, accounting for about 21% of the world's population, and the per capita egg consumption level is about twice the world average," Yang Ning told China Science Daily. As a veritable laying hen production country, the breeding method has been dominated by small and medium-sized breeding of less than 10,000 for a long time, and the industrial characteristics of "small-scale and large-scale groups" are prominent. The problems such as overcapacity, weak brooding ability and weak deep processing ability in the process of its development can not be ignored. How to make the layer industry transition to improved breed, specialization, facility and marketization smoothly is a major concern of the industry.

Wavy development of industry

Xue Jinggui, who has been raising laying hens for many years, has this feeling: "the benefit in the first half of this year is slightly lower than that in the same period in previous years." Xue Jinggui runs a chicken cooperative and currently has a scale of more than 10,000 chickens.

And Xue Jinggui's "feeling" is exactly what Yang Ning expected. "through the research and analysis of enterprises and markets, it is generally believed that the benefit rise and fall cycle of the laying hen breeding industry is about 3 years. According to the monitoring data, it is expected that the benefit of laying hens will decline in 2015. " Yang Ning said.

Although the production capacity of laying hens declined in 2014, the supply and demand of eggs was in a tight balance. "however, the production efficiency of the laying hen industry is good throughout the year, and the prices of eggs and knockout chickens are at an all-time high, especially in August, when the price of eggs reached a record high of 10.71 yuan / kg." Yang Ning said.

It is understood that in 2014, the profit of commercial laying hens exceeded 30 yuan per hen, and the laying hen industry has also become the most profitable industry in the animal husbandry industry.

Wang Junxun, deputy director of the Animal Husbandry Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, analyzed that the high income of the laying hen industry in 2014 aroused the enthusiasm of layer breeding, resulting in an increase in laying hen stock and egg production in the first five months of this year.

According to the monitoring data of the Animal Husbandry Department of the Ministry of Agriculture in 100 laying hen breeding counties across the country, there were 14.9143 million laying hens in May, an increase of 1.2% from the previous month and 8.9% from the same period last year.

"at present, the stock of laying hens is at a high level in the past two years, and egg prices are expected to continue to decline in the next two months, and the efficiency of breeding is significantly lower than that in 2014." Wang Junxun further analyzed and said.

Yang Ning said that after years of development, China's laying hen industry has basically completed improved breed, specialization, facilities and marketization, and formed a relatively perfect division of labor system in the industry.

According to Qin Fu, a scientist in the industrial economic post of the national laying hen industrial technology system and a researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Economics of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, after the financial crisis, China's laying hen industry recovered quickly, but the market stability was poor, egg prices fluctuated frequently, and breeding benefits fluctuated greatly. "it can be said that although laying hen farming in China has gradually promoted the integration within the industry in labor pains, it has also brought negative effects such as damaged interests of farmers and unstable market supply."

Brooding is the biggest problem.

In recent years, China imports about 200000 ancestral laying hens from the United States every year. However, there was a bird flu epidemic in the United States, and AQSIQ and the Ministry of Agriculture issued a notice on January 9, 2015, banning the import of live poultry, breeding eggs and poultry products from the United States, seriously affecting the normal production and operation of some ancestral laying hens.

However, "the rapid development of domestic independent breeding in recent years can ensure the production capacity of ancestral laying hens, and the supply of improved breeds is fully guaranteed in terms of quantity and quality." Yang Ning explained to the China Science Daily.

Statistics from the China Animal Husbandry Association show that in 2014, 559600 sets of ancestral egg chicks were added nationwide, including 630300 sets of ancestral egg breeder chickens, 17 million sets of parent breeder hens and 1.17 billion commercial laying hens, and the egg output was about 21 million tons.