Seven Challenges in the Development of China's Laying Hen Industry

The challenge is due to the foundation of "small, large groups"

Small and medium-sized farms (households) with less than 10,000 laying hens in China account for about 63% of the total stock of laying hens and the total national egg output. The study found that there was a deviation between the willingness and behavior of farmers to expand the scale of breeding, and the difficulties faced by farmers in the process of breeding were the main reasons for the deviation of their willingness and behavior, including the death rate of laying hens, the age of farmers, the level of education, market sales channels, bargaining power and waste disposal burden. The main factors that affect the scale of layer farmers are the proportion of the family's breeding labor force, the average age of the breeding labor force, the average education level of the breeding labor force, the family income structure, the constraints of breeding land, the ability of farmers' breeding management and supporting policies.

Since 2007, the state has greatly increased its capital investment and arranged 0.462 billion yuan to support the standardized scale farms of laying hens by means of "award instead of subsidy. After the development during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, the standardization and large-scale development trend of my country's laying hen industry is becoming more and more obvious, and the integration process of the laying hen industry is also accelerating.

In the past 10 years, the scale of commercial generation layer breeding has been greatly improved. In the second half of 2013, Yang Ning, chief scientist of the laying hen system, organized a survey. The results showed that the proportion of more than 5000 hens was about 70%.

According to the latest industry statistics, the annual stock of small-scale farmers below 2000 still accounts for about 30% of the total stock in 2015. Farmers do not have a comprehensive grasp of market information, farming planning is poor, there is the phenomenon of following the trend of farming, blind entry. Farmers have a weak ability to judge and respond to market risks, and are more vulnerable to the impact of industrial cyclical fluctuations and emergencies. It is difficult to withstand the huge risks posed by short-term price fluctuations, and in the event of a helpless exit, resulting in irreparable losses.

Challenge two production costs continue to rise

1, chicken seedling cost. The purchase price of chicken seedlings increased by about 3.5 per cent annually during the period from 2000 to 2016. Large-scale laying hen breeders pay more attention to the quality of laying hens, usually the purchase price of high-quality chicken seedlings is higher than that of ordinary varieties.

2. Feed costs. The cost of refined feed accounts for a large proportion of the cost of the layer industry, even close to 75% in small-scale layers, and the increase in the price of refined feed is the most important factor leading to the increase in the cost of the layer industry. The price of layer feed increased by about 4.3 per cent annually during the period from 2000 to 2016.

3, labor costs. In recent years, labor costs have also been rising. Laying hen enterprises generally reflect that it is not only difficult to recruit breeders (labor costs in 2016 are about 30% higher than in 2010), but also difficult to hire workers during the peak working season.

4, the cost of epidemic prevention. From 2004 to 2016, the average annual growth rate of medical and epidemic prevention costs for laying hens is 3 to 4%. What is not commensurate with the higher medical costs is the death loss fee that has increased year by year. The death loss fee for large-scale laying hens is also higher than that for large-scale broilers in the same period. The most challenging thing is that there is no prevention.

Challenge three egg processing quantity is small, the level is different

China's modern egg processing industry started relatively late. Statistics show that eggs are mainly consumed by domestic fresh eggs, while the proportion of egg processing is lower than that of large-scale production and processing enterprises, and the scale of operation is very small. The egg processing capacity between regions is very unbalanced, and the gap with that at home and abroad is even greater, lower than that of Japan, the United States, Europe and other countries or regions.

Challenge four diseases have a greater impact on the industry

In 2009, the Ministry of Agriculture launched a special study on the strategic plan for the prevention and control of major animal diseases in the medium and long term, including diseases related to laying hens. Laying hen breeding enterprises actively take measures to actively prevent and control laying hen diseases, especially laying hen breeding enterprises with large scale and huge investment amount, such as Deqingyuan, Yukou, Shendan, Shengdile village and other enterprises have established strict disease monitoring and control system.

Due to the characteristics of "small scale and large group" in China's laying hen industry, most of the laying hen breeding enterprises are classified as low biosafety production methods defined by FAO. Impact of H7N9 influenza disease on egg prices, egg breeding benefits and industry. Taking 2017 as an example, the path of the impact of the bird flu incident on the laying hen industry mainly includes the output price path, the output quantity path and the input cost path. As a random factor, bird flu disease will affect the price trend of eggs and eliminated chickens, with an impact cycle of about 6 months, and the duration of bird flu event depends on the response speed of national monitoring, prevention and control of bird flu disease; based on the loss caused by the price of eggs, the price of eliminated chickens, the loss caused by the decrease in the price of chicks, the loss caused by the decrease in the number of sales, and the loss caused by the increase in the cost of laying hens, it is preliminarily calculated that from the winter of 2016 to the spring of 2017, the total loss caused by avian influenza is about 23 billion yuan.

Challenge Five Environmental Protection Supervision Efforts Continuously Increase

The central government has made great efforts in environmental supervision and inspection, and the environmental assessment of various regions will be placed in a more important position than GDP growth. Local governments will also be more strict and iron fist in controlling livestock and poultry pollution, focusing on the supervision of farms (households) with forbidden breeding areas, low breeding scale, poor breeding efficiency, imperfect manure treatment facilities and serious pollution.

Challenge 6 Waste treatment and utilization needs to be improved

Waste treatment and utilization has always been a difficult problem for the development of the industry, and the manure treatment is still mostly natural stacking and direct return to the field. It not only causes waste of resources, but also pollutes the breeding and living environment, which is not conducive to the healthy development of the entire industry; organic fertilizers are slow to take effect and cannot enjoy fertilizer subsidies. There are also high market prices, difficult promotion, and low market acceptance. problem.

Challenge 7 Market Risk

The main manifestations of egg market risk are price fluctuation risk and farmers' income risk, egg price fluctuation has obvious seasonality and periodicity, seasonal cycle law is 1 year, and the cyclical cycle law is about 36 months. In recent years, there has been an early trend in the cycle.