News » World's largest pig factory built in China

Muyuan Foods has plans to raise more pigs on a single sitethan anywhere else in the world; it will eventually house 84,000 sowsand their offspring and aims to produce around 2.1 million pigs a year.Muyuan Foods claims that pork prices have soared due to the global African Swine Fever(ASF) epidemic that has caused the death of 40% of China's pigs, andthis has incentivised their new build. ?We have hit a very favourableperiod for development. Pig prices are very high, our profits are reallygood, and cash flow is really ample?.

To deal with the potentially vast numbers of sick pigs, the Chinese system uses pig Face Recognition Technology(FRT) which the animal factory operators claim has ?slashed costs, cutdown on breeding time, and improved welfare outcomes for the pigsthemselves?. Though high-tech might be useful to find and treat diseasesin a system that intrinsically makes pigs sick, we must remember thatanimals raised outside on small scale holdings rarely need medication.However, as the Guardian articleexplains; ?If these developments prove to be too expensive forsmall-scale farmers, it will probably further concentrate agriculturalcapital in the hands of just a few. In the 1980s and 90s, around 80% ofpork made its way onto Chinese plates from small backyard farms ? by2018, that balance had flipped, with 80% coming from farms with 500 ormore animals.?

Source: https://farmsnotfactories.org/articles/treat-the-root-causes-of-a-broken-farming-system-not-the-symptoms.