Sun Haoyu, a hog farmer in Dalian, in northern China’s Liaoning Province, first noticed pork prices beginning to tumble late last year.

去年底，中国北方辽宁省大连市的生猪养殖户孙浩宇（音）首次注意到猪肉价格开始大幅下跌。

With 3,000 hogs to care for, Mr. Sun said, he had “no choice but to tough it out,” relying entirely on loans and borrowed money to keep his operation afloat. But prices kept plummeting, and last month they hit a 16-year low. Now, across his region, many small farms are on the brink of collapse.

孙先生说，由于手上有3000头生猪，他“不可能给他推倒重干别的，所以只能硬扛”，完全依靠贷款和借来的资金来维持经营。但价格仍在持续暴跌，并在上个月跌至16年来的新低。如今，在他所在的整个地区，许多小型养殖场都处于倒闭的边缘。

“Many hog farmers can no longer hold out,” Mr. Sun said in an interview. “After all that backbreaking work raising hogs, we can barely afford the feed anymore.”

“有很多养殖户已经扛不住了，”孙先生在接受采访时说。“辛辛苦苦养殖，连这个粮食都快进不起了。”

China’s plunging pork prices are more than an agricultural problem. In a country where the commodity is treated as a bellwether of inflation, the decline is an ominous sign for the economy.

中国猪肉价格的暴跌不仅是一个农业问题。在这个将该商品视为通货膨胀风向标的国家，这一跌势对经济而言是一个不祥的预兆。

Not long ago, pork prices were soaring after an epidemic of swine fever devastated the nation’s hogs. That prompted Beijing to ramp up production, creating a glut just as Chinese consumers were looking to save rather than spend.

不久之前，一场非洲猪瘟疫情重创全国的生猪养殖业，猪肉价格曾一路飙升。这促使北京方面增加生产，结果在中国消费者打算存钱而非消费之际造成了供应过剩。

The pork industry is another casualty of China’s economic slowdown. The property market is in a yearslong slump, dragging down spending, including at restaurants, a big driver of pork sales. Construction activity has also weakened, reducing demand for pork, long a staple for workers on building sites, according to a report from Nomura, the Japanese bank.

养猪业是中国经济放缓的又一个牺牲品。房地产市场正处于长达数年的低迷期，拖累了包括餐馆在内的消费支出，而餐馆是猪肉销售的主要驱动力。根据日本银行野村证券的一份报告，作为长期以来工地工人的主要食物之一，建筑活动的走弱也减少了对猪肉的需求。

“The construction site workers and then dining out are the two cohorts that we see have a higher pork consumption,” Hannah Liu, a China economist at Nomura, said in an interview. “When we see a collapse from these two cohorts, we definitely see demand crater.”

“我们发现，建筑工地工人和外出就餐者是猪肉消费量较高的两个群体，”野村证券中国经济学家汉娜·刘在接受采访时说。“当我们看到这两个群体的消费出现崩塌时，需求必然会随之骤降。”

China has endured years of deflation across much of the economy, and pork prices are down 39 percent over the last four years, according to data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics. That deflationary trend began to reverse only in recent months, when rising energy costs from the war in Iran pushed up prices.

根据中国国家统计局的数据，中国大部分经济领域已经经历了数年的通货紧缩，猪肉价格在过去四年中下降了39%。这种趋势直到几个月前才开始逆转，当时因伊朗战争引发的能源成本上升推高了物价。

While the government has sought to boost major pork producers, offering them heavily subsidized bank loans and credit to expand, smaller farmers like Mr. Sun have received far less assistance.

尽管政府一直试图扶持大型猪肉生产商，向他们提供有高额补贴的银行贷款和授信额度以进行扩张，孙先生这样的个体小农户获得的帮助却少得多。

Even with government support, the industry’s biggest players are struggling. Wens Foodstuff Group, one of China’s biggest hog producers, saw profits fall 43 percent last year. The company said prices for its pigs in April fell about 38 percent from a year earlier.

即使有政府的支持，该行业最大的几家企业也举步维艰。中国最大生猪生产商之一温氏食品集团去年的利润下降了43%。该公司表示，4月份其生猪价格同比下降了约38%。

Dabeinong, another pork giant, sold more pork this year than last year but still reported a decline in profitability, citing “market conditions and fluctuations in hog prices.”

另一家生猪巨头大北农今年的猪肉销量虽然高于去年，但仍报告了盈利能力的下降，并辩称原因为“市场环境及猪价波动”。

The downturn is a stark reversal from the soaring prices after the 2019 swine fever epidemic. In an attempt to lower prices and promote agricultural self-reliance — a priority championed by China’s leader, Xi Jinping — the government encouraged the construction of massive, multistory pig farms.

这次低迷与2019年猪瘟疫情后价格飙升的状况形成了鲜明反差。为了降低价格并促进农业自给自足——这是中国领导人习近平所倡导的优先事项——政府曾鼓励建设大型的多层养猪场。

But now, farmers find themselves with too many hogs and not enough demand in a country that consumes half of the world’s pork.

但如今，在这个消费了全球一半猪肉的国家，养殖户们发现自己面临着生猪过多而需求不足的困境。

In China, the meat is a staple in everyday meals and in dishes served at celebratory events or fancy dinners. Because it is so frequently consumed, pork is especially susceptible to the weaknesses of an economy gripped by stubborn youth unemployment, a shaky property market and a strained pension system.

在中国，这种肉类是日常膳食、庆祝活动或高级宴席中不可或缺的主要食材。正因为消费的普遍性，猪肉特别容易受到经济疲软的影响，而目前的经济正受到顽固的青年失业率、摇摇欲坠的房地产市场和吃紧的养老金体系的困扰。

Diners at restaurants have been spending less money per meal than just a few years ago, according to Canyin88, a Chinese website that collects data on the restaurant industry. Even the lavish banquets and business dinners once held by government officials have been reined in. Some local governments have barred civil servants from dining in groups of more than three, after several reports of excessive drinking at official banquets.

根据收集餐饮业数据的中国网站“餐饮88”的数据，现在餐馆食客每餐花费的金额比几年前要少。甚至连政府官员过去常常举行的大手大脚的宴会和商务宴请也受到了抑制。在数起关于官方宴会上过度饮酒的报道出现后，一些地方政府已禁止公务员进行三人以上的聚餐。

In a symbolic effort to reassure markets, Beijing has repeatedly bought meat for its national strategic pork reserve, an emergency government-run stockpile stored in warehouses across the country. In 2019, when pork prices skyrocketed, the government tapped those reserves to help ease grocery costs.

Beijing has also prodded local governments to buy more pork, because prices have fallen beyond the “warning zone for excessive price drops.”

And last month, during a pair of high-level meetings, including one led by Mr. Xi, officials stressed the importance of addressing “the profound shifts currently taking place in the supply-demand dynamics” of the pork industry.

在上个月举行的两次高层会议期间（包括一次由习近平主持的会议），官员们强调了解决猪肉行业当前“供需关系发生深刻变化”这一问题的重要性。

The authorities have already urged farmers to reduce the pork entering the market by culling breeding sows. Regulators have also set stricter weight standards for each hog, effectively limiting the volume of meat available for sale. At the same time, the government has scaled back the subsidized loans it once offered to large-scale pig farms seeking to expand.

当局已经敦促养殖户通过淘汰能繁母猪来减少进入市场的猪肉。监管机构还对每头生猪制定了更严格的体重标准，从而有效限制了可供销售的肉量。与此同时，政府也缩减了曾向寻求扩张的大型养猪场提供的补贴贷款。

Those efforts, Ms. Liu said, could help stabilize prices. But without a stronger recovery in consumer demand, she didn’t expect them to rebound significantly.

汉娜·刘说，这些努力有助于稳定价格。但如果消费者需求没有更强劲的复苏，她预计价格不会出现明显反弹。

“There is little to do from the demand side,” Ms. Liu said of further government interventions. “You cannot order other enterprises to purchase more pork.”

“需求侧已经没什么能做的了，”她在谈到政府的进一步干预时说。“你无法命令其他企业购买更多猪肉。”