China's loses significant number of pigs to disease.

China's loses significant number of pigs to disease: China, the world's biggest pork consumer, may lose 20 percent of its hog herd to blue-ear disease, forcing the country to import more meat, said Larry Pope, chief executive officer of Smithfield Foods, the world's largest hog-and pork-producing company. Bloomberg News reports that as many as 100 million hogs, more than the United States produces in a year, may be affected by the respiratory virus. "Their problem could be the size of our whole production, which means if they have to solve even a part of that it could be enormous," Pope said Thursday on a conference call with analysts. The Smithfield, Va.-based company raises about 18 million pigs a year. China's wholesale pork prices surged 46 percent this year through Aug. 3 after an outbreak of blue-ear disease forced farmers to destroy infected animals, compounding a shortage. The price surge helped push China's July inflation to the highest in more than 10 years. U.S. pork exports to China in the first half of this year are up 68 percent to 88.4 million pounds compared with a year earlier, USDA said last week.