In a company disclosure document, China’s New Hope Group revealed plans to invest US$1.35 billion over the next three to five years to expand into pig farming, reports China Money Network.

 

The plans to diversify the company beyond animal feed into other food and agricultural industries could drive the Sichuan Province-based company to become the largest hog operation in the country. Currently, China’s hog sector is very fragmented. Only one company – Guangdong Wen’s Foodstuffs Group Co. Ltd. has the capacity to produce more than 10 million hogs per year, reports eFeedLink.

 

The group, which currently owns hog farms in Hebei, Sichuan and Shandong Provinces with output of 8.5 million pigs per year, is planning to expand production to reach 10 million hogs per year from a combination of its own farms and affiliate farms within five years. Toward this end, the company has also announced the acquisition of Benxiang Agriculture, a pig farming operation located in Shaanxi Province for RMB616 million (US$94 million), which produced 200,000 pigs in 2015.

 

New Hope is the largest producer of animal feed in China, producing 26.6 million tons per year. The group also has the capacity to process 750 million head of poultry per year, and 500,000 tons of milk per year, according to China Money Network.