In Wenzhou, where the pork price has leapt 46 per cent in six months, the city's frozen reserve is 400 tons.

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Local media have toured the government freezers in recent days to assure the public that a reserve of 50 grams of pork per person would last four days even if no new supply came in. So Friday's Mid-Autumn Festival meal is safe.

Maintaining food security has long been a major goal of the Chinese government, after a history of famines in its huge population.

China's economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, announced Monday the government would offer subsidies of up to 5 million yuan for large-scale pig farmers to expand or construct new farms. The money can also be used to buy disease prevention and manure treatment equipment.

Restrictions on pig farm locations will be removed. Subsidies provided to farmers for killing African Swine Fever herds will be paid more quickly - within three months - the government said.

Local governments will be banned from simply shutting down diseased pig farms without providing help for the farmers to relocate somewhere else.

From this month, trucks transportation of pigs and pork on China's highways will be toll free.

Business magazine Caixin reported the pork shortage was so big that international imports can't fill the gap.

Australian exports of beef to China have surged this year as restaurants and supermarkets seek to substitute meats amid the pork shortage, however China is not a major market for Australian pork.

The Ministry of Agriculture found pork prices in 16 provinces in the last week of August were 92 per cent higher than the same time last year (35 yuan per kilogram).

Both American pork, and the American soybeans commonly used as feed for pigs, were hit with extra Chinese tariffs in September amid the US/China trade war.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation says China has culled 1.17 million pigs and is moving from containing the outbreak to looking at how it can restock.