The widespread outbreak of African swine fever that has prompted China to slaughter millions of pigs has caused 1 trillion yuan ($140 billion) of direct losses, an industry expert estimates.
Li Defa, who heads the College of Animal Science and Technology at China Agricultural University, made the remarks at a pig industry forum on Tuesday. The upstream and downstream of the pork industry chain — such as pig feed and catering industry — are not included in the calculation, he said.