“Now it’s a bad time to get into the fur business,” says a farm worker in Hebei province, northern China. The worker, who has been farming foxes for more than 30 years, says they have stopped after operating at a loss for several years in a row.
China is the world’s biggest producer of animal fur, but here in Suning county, its “capital of fur”, business appears quiet. “The whole industry chain – raw fur and garment production – is struggling,” says the farm worker.
An average of more than 4,000 fur enterprises deregistered their business licences each year between 2017 and 2019, according to Economic Daily, with an estimated 52% having quit the industry as of January 2022.
