One-quarter of the world’s pigs died in a year due to swine fever in China
Funny to see this finally making mainstream news and the front page of HN. I worked as a research analyst at a long/short equities fund and one of the biggest bets we placed was based on ASF. The sell side was completely complacent about this, but we were tracking the disease closely and the math was undeniable - this was going to be a major, major disruption in global protein markets.Bullets of the thesis were:- African Swine Fever in China is putting half the global supply of hogs at risk.- It will take years for China to get a handle on the disease.- This will cause prices of pork in China to rise. China will have to import pork to fill the hole in order to avoid a political crisis.- As a result, global proteins will enter a multi-year up-cycle. All proteins (beef, chicken, pork) will benefit.This structural thesis could be played many, many ways.