The global pork market is currently facing a major obstacle: African swine fever.  This disease has severely cut China’s hog population, which is predicted to drop around 40 percent from the beginning of 2018 to 2020.  This will consequently reduce global pork production by 10 percent in 2020 and is especially consequential because China is the world’s leader in pork sales, yielding a value of 118.2 billion dollars in 2018.  The disease and its negative effect on the ability of the pork industry to meet market demand have caused pork and bacon prices to rise, likely leading to the largest jump in price since the mad cow disease epidemic of 2004.  With such a big shift in the meat industry, questions arise about how the pork segment will respond and how this shift will impact the meat industry as a whole.