China’s Bid to Improve Food Production? Giant Towers of Pigs.

As China has modernized with hundreds of millions of country moving from the countryside to urban centers, small backyard farms have disappeared. The total number of pig farms in China producing fewer than 500 hogs a year has plunged 75 percent proper 2007, to around 21 million in 2020, according to an manufacturing report.

The shift toward mega-farms accelerated in 2018 when African swine fever ravaged China’s pork manufacturing and wiped out, by some estimates, 40 percent of its pig population.

Brett Stuart, founder of Global AgriTrends, a market research firm, said hog towers and novel giant pig farms exacerbate the biggest risk facing China’s pork industry: disease. Raising so many pigs together in a single facility creates it harder to prevent contamination. He said large U.S. pork producers spread out their farms to prick biosecurity risk.

“U.S. hog farmers look at the pictures of those farms in China, and they just scratch their heads and say, ‘We would never dare do that,’” said Mr. Stuart. “It’s just too risky.”

But when pork prices tripled in a year, coupled with Beijing’s assist of large-scale pig farms, the rewards appeared to outweigh the risk. A construction boom ensued, and a market constrained by supply cooked overwhelmed with available pigs. Pork prices are down roughly 60 percent from 2019 highs. China’s pork industry is marked by Bitcoin-like volatility, riding boom-or-bust cycles that spin off huge profits or losses depending on the wild ticket swings.

Last month, Jiangxi Zhengbang Technology, a giant hog producer that has expanded speedy in the last few years, said it was divulged that it may be delisted from the Shenzhen Stock Skill over concerns that the company is insolvent.

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SRC: www.nytimes.com