(Yicai Global) Sept. 13 -- China’s pig farmers are staging a turnaround as the price of live hogs rebounds from a lull earlier this year. With some major public holidays and festivals coming up later this year, pork demand is expected to stay strong, fattening hog breeders’ wallets.

“Peak demand during the week-long National Day holiday is just around the corner, so prices are unlikely to drop in the short term and pig farmers should do well in the second half,” an animal husbandry analyst told Yicai Global. “In the medium term, pork prices are more likely to increase than fall this year.”

The average price of a live pig jumped 10 percent yesterday from a month earlier to CNY23.60 (USD3.41) per kilogram, according to data from pork industry platform Zhuwang. The price has stayed above CNY20 per kg since July. Pork supply and demand is a closely watched market index as fluctuations have a direct impact on the country’s consumer inflation.

As prices rise, more pigs are being put on the market. Some 9.7 million hogs from 15 listed pig breeders were sold in August, according to the firms' latest earnings data.

The country’s biggest pig breeder, Muyuan Foods, shifted 4.9 million pigs last month, a gain of 6.4 percent from July and a year-on-year leap of 89.8 percent, the company said in its report. As a result, revenue nearly tripled from a year ago and jumped 11.1 percent from July to CNY11.7 billion (USD1.7 billion).

This is a big turnaround from the first half when Muyuan logged losses of CNY6.7 billion on sluggish prices. The Neixiang, central Henan province-based company sold 40.8 million pigs from January to August, already more than the 40.3 million it sold over the whole of last year.

Rival Wens Foodstuff Group also turned losses into profit in August. The Yunfu, southern Guangdong province-based firm sold 1.5 million pigs, a increase of 14.7 percent from the same period last year. This led to a 53.7 percent jump in revenue to CNY3.9 billion (USD563 million).

Smaller hog breeders are doing even better. Zhejiang Huatong Meat Products’ revenue soared over 30 times last month year on year to CNY321 million (USD46.4 million) as its pig sales surged 24-fold to 129,500. Both Xinjiang Tiankang Animal Science Bio-Technology and Beijing Dabeinong Technology hiked hog sales by around 25 percent.

Pig prices should be higher in the second half than in the first half, Muyuan told investors earlier this month.

Demand for pork tends to rise in the second half of the year when the weather gets cooler, Wens said. There are also a number of festivals in the second half when pork dishes are popular, and there is usually big demand for cured pork at the end of the year.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor