Malaysia’s pork prices surge as local farms hit by African swine fever

TANJUNG SEPAT, Selangor – The sound of meat being chopped by cleavers echoed through eight pork butcher stalls at Petaling Jaya’s Old Town Pasar (market) on May 17, belying a crisis the Malaysian stallholders are facing.

Local butchers are grappling with

surging pork prices due to African swine fever (ASF),

which affected farms in Tanjung Sepat, Selangor, one of the country’s largest pig-producing hubs, at the start of 2025.

Mr Tong, 50, one of the butchers at the market in Selangor, said his customers have started reducing their pork belly purchases to cope with the higher prices.

“They would previously buy 1kg of pork belly. Now, it’s maybe just one or two strips, around 600g,” Mr Tong, who preferred to be called Zhu Yok Fatt (Pork Fatt), told The Straits Times on May 17.

Today, 1kg of fresh pork belly in Klang Valley costs RM40 (S$12), a surge of 33 per cent from RM30 in 2020. The current market price is at a two-year high, forcing some consumers to switch to more bud­get-friendly alternatives such as chicken and fish.

Office executive Hew Jin Hao, 31 said he has started substituting pork with chicken as a more wallet-friendly option, or occasionally seafood as a luxury treat, compared with two years ago.

“In 2022, a typical pork shoulder cost around RM18 per kg. Now, it’s RM25. For just RM5 more, I can buy fish instead. Chicken is only about RM10 per kg, so I’d rather skip pork altogether,” he told ST.

Pork supply in Malaysia was severely disrupted in the aftermath of the death of 300 sows during an ASF outbreak in January 2025, said Mr Lee, a Tanjung Sepat pig farmer.

“A piglet takes up to two years to grow into a sow for breeding. Now, I’m thinking of shutting down my farm; every pig is gone,” said the 60-year-old, who withheld his full name to avoid affecting ongoing transactions, in an interview with ST.

The latest outbreak of ASF in Tanjung Sepat has led to a monthly loss of 30,000 market-ready pigs that had to be culled, each weighing around 120kg, estimated Malaysia Pork Sellers Association chairman Chow Poh Yuen.

As it is, in recent years, Malaysia’s domestic supply has not been keeping pace with local consumption of pork – much of this being due to previous outbreaks of ASF, the biggest bane of the pig-rearing industry.

In 2023, the country produced 1.24 million live pigs with ex-farm market value of RM2.3 billion. It also imported 68,300 tonnes of fresh, frozen and chilled pork valued at RM943.82 million. The 2023 imports were about four times the 17,381.9 tonnes of pork, valued at RM261.38 million, imported in 2021.

Malaysia’s first outbreak of ASF was detected in wild boar and backyard pigs in Sabah in February 2021, according to a World Organisation for Animal Health alert issued in early March that year. This was followed by subsequent discoveries of ASF in wild boar herds in Perak and Pahang in December 2021, Malaysia’s Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) said then.

To curb the spread, the first large-scale culling of infected domestic pigs in Peninsular Malaysia took place in Paya Mengkuang, Melaka, in December 2021.

But the disease continued to spread, infecting swine in Negeri Sembilan, Perak, Pahang, Johor and Penang, leading to a significant reduction in live pig production in these states.

In response, DVS banned the interstate transportation of pigs to curb the spread of the infection, allowing only chilled pork to be transported between the Malaysian states.

Peninsular Malaysia saw a nearly 30 per cent drop in live pig production from 1.37 million in 2021 to 990,736 in 2024. But Selangor, which was spared the earlier rounds of ASF, had a slight increase in production, rising from 227,840 in 2021 to 254,425 in 2024, according to livestock statistics from DVS.

However, the severe ASF outbreak in Selangor since January 2025 has led to wider culling of livestock in Tanjung Sepat – which hosts 114, or more than a quarter of the 401 licensed pig farms in Peninsular Malaysia.

A veterinarian in private practice with 46 years of experience in the pig-farming industry, who wanted to be known only as Mr Lim, told ST: “The ASF mortality rate is high. A sow loses its appetite, develops purplish patches and eventually dies. Post-mortem reveals internal bleeding, kidney haemorrhage and an enlarged spleen, growing up to two feet from its normal size of one foot (30.5cm).”

While the disease is not infectious to humans, he said no effective ASF vaccine has been developed for use in swine.

The pork sellers association’s Mr Chow, 65, said: “Before the ASF outbreak, abattoirs operated six days a week. Now, it’s down to just three. The severe shortage has pushed live pig prices from RM750 to RM1,780 per 100kg.”

The current shortfall is being filled by pork from Spain, the Netherlands and Canada, but the lower import prices – about half that of fresh Malaysian pork – could reduce the demand for local pork, he added.

Representing 1,500 members, Mr Chow is scheduled to meet the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFS) on May 20 to discuss expanding the list of approved pork-importing countries and implementing price controls.

Acknowledging the rising pork prices, Agriculture and Food Security Minister Mohamad Sabu said the ministry is considering pork sellers’ requests to expand import sources to include Thailand, Brazil and China, going beyond the current suppliers in Europe, Australia, Canada, the US and the UK.

“For a long-term solution to ASF, MAFS urges all industry players to modernise their farms to achieve disease-free status. As this transformation requires significant investment, the ministry is prepared to support stakeholders through the process. A dialogue session will be held in due course,” Datuk Seri Mohamad said in a statement on May 17.

For now, the butcher known as Zhu Yok Fatt hopes the ASF outbreak will be brought under control soon and pork supply will be stabilised in the Klang Valley area.

“If more pigs are bred in Tanjung Sepat, fresh pork prices will come down,” he said.