Some Chinese pig farmers are "producing" giant pig breeds as the country faces livestock shortages.
A bit like in the Netflix film from some time ago, “Okja,” in which a company selected a particular huge animal species to maximize profits, some farmers counteract the shortage of animals by breeding increasingly larger ones. And when I say “big” I mean “large beyond suspicion”. A Chinese pig is something abnormal. Chinese breeds appear to be now composed only of giant pigs.
In Nanning, the capital of Guangxi province, a farmer raised pigs weighing over 500 kilos and as big as polar bears. Oh my God, I shivered: think if the Chinese started to raise giant bears. How do you say goodbye in Chinese?
Bloomberg reports that the abnormal pigs are sold at a price of around 10.000 yuan (roughly € 1300). It is more than three times the average Chinese salary in the province.
How much it grows
Adult pigs usually grow to a wide weight range, from 130 to 300 pounds. All pig breeds include variations with large, very large pigs. The “record” giant pig on the planet? In America: His name is Big Bill. No, it's not a political allusion, there are no cigars involved, I'm actually talking about pigs. The large pig raised in Jackson, Tennessee was truly the largest pig in the world. He weighed over 1100 kilos. The chronicles of the last century pass down that Big Bill was knocked down before his journey to the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, because his legs broke under his weight. What about micro pigs? China has long dictated the law there too, but that's another story.
A bulky weight
Many oversized pigs suffer the same fate of medical complications. In 2004, another meat pig that became a show pig, a giant "champion" weight pig, this time Chinese, died due to lack of mobility due to the over 800 kilos it was carrying.
How are pigs of this type raised, or rather: how do they reduce them to this state? Are they like this even as piglets, perhaps from the sow's pregnancy, or do they experience an acceleration?
Cannon meat
Nanning's giant pigs are raised for slaughter: from small farmers to large corporations, everyone needs more meat and resorts to heavy vehicles. We must combat the decline in livestock due to swine flu, which is decimating pigs throughout Asia.
La China it is the world's largest consumer of pork (and I challenge, with these micro pigs): it alone eats more than half the meat pigs of the world total.
Not just for money
Small breeders and large companies try to increase the weight of their animals for two reasons. The first, the profit: an increase in the average weight of 14% produces a profit of 30%.
The second: the Chinese government. Authorities have warned that in the first half of 2020 farmers will have to "sacrifice" up to 10 million tonnes of livestock, and several breeds of pigs to make up for shortages.
A slaughter
The sacrifice will result in the death of between 250 and 350 million Chinese pigs. Among farmers, however, there is a widespread fear that the contagion has not been extinguished, and that starting again with normal breeding will lead to a new mass slaughter, with the loss of all investments. Hence the hunt for the creation of the “super pig”.
In short (Italian only)
It seems like a vicious circle to me: the obsessive mechanisms of intensive farming have contributed to a swine epidemic. The farmers' response is to produce abnormal livestock, that is, to maximize the obsessiveness of intensive farming. How does it come out, in your opinion?
