Up to 200 million pigs could be culled or die from being infected as African swine fever spreads through China, Rabobank said, by far the highest such forecast yet and underscoring the gravity of the epidemic in the world’s top pork producer. Such a number would mark a huge chunk of the nation’s pig herd, which Rabobank says stood at 360 million animals late last year, and comes as many in the industry say the spread of swine fever there is much worse than authorities have reported. The drop would drag down China’s pork output by 30 percent in 2019 from last year, Rabobank said in a statement late on Thursday, boosting demand for meat imports and sapping appetite for animal feed made from commodities like soybeans. “It’s unprecedented, and there are many dimensions of the situation that are still not fully understood,” Justin Sherrard, Rabobank’s […]