World’s largest building dedicated to pig slaughter inaugurated in China. The building, which looks like a residential block like the others, is actually a large-scale slaughterhouse built on the outskirts of Ezhou city in central China’s Hubei province.
Having 26 floors makes this skyscraper a real meat factory. has the capacity to slaughter at least 1.2 million pigs every year. Production started last October.
This is China’s response to the country’s insatiable demand for pork, the country’s most popular animal protein.
The owner of the facility, Zhongxin Kaiwei, is new to the pig and livestock industry. But it is taking advantage of the huge demand for this meat that exists in the country. It started out as a cement investor with numerous factories in provinces such as Hubei and Henan. One such factory, Hubei Xinshiji Cement, is actually next to the new pig farm.
the company said so originally planned to invest in ready-to-cook food production, but changed his mind after the decline in China’s cement and construction industries.. Jin Lin, the company’s managing director, told The Guardian that the company sees modern agriculture as a promising industry, as well as an opportunity to use its own building materials to build the pig farm.
According to the statements in the company’s official WeChat account, pig farm has two buildings. A building of the same size and appearance behind the operation area is nearing completion. Once fully operational, they will provide a unified space. An area of 800,000 square meters with a capacity of 650,000 animals.
The 4 billion yuan (549 million euro) farm has controlled gas, temperature and ventilation conditions, with animals fed from more than 30,000 automatic feeding points at the push of a button in a central control room.
The company claims that the waste from the pigs will be treated and used for this. produce biogas that can be used to generate electricity and heating water within the farm. Workers will need to undergo multiple disinfections and tests before they can be granted entry and will not be allowed to leave the field until their next break, which is reportedly once a week.
Farmers living in the village across from the farm say they are concerned that the proximity of the farm could create an odor problem when fully operational.
“About 30 years ago, when I was raising pigs, we only had two or three in our backyard pigsty. I’ve heard that pigs raised on these farms can be ready for sale in just a few months, whereas in the past it took us about a year to raise one. But I think this will be the trend in the future as technology develops,” said one of the neighbors.
Promotion of high altitude macro farms
China tried to improve pork production (consuming about half of the world’s pork) After losing as many as 100 million pigs to the African swine fever (PPA) between 2018 and 2020.
In a policy published in 2019, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, will allow the construction of high-altitude cultivation facilities. It’s an announcement welcomed by investors, including Kingkey Smart Farming, who say the high-altitude production model is more efficient, biosafe and environmentally friendly.
“Compared to traditional breeding methods, high altitude pig farms are smarter with high levels of automation and biosecurity. Zhu Zengyong, a professor at the Animal Science Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said its popularity grew after the outbreak of African swine fever.
In the southwestern province of Sichuan alone, 64 multi-storey farmhouses are planned or built as of 2020. “Inevitably, the pig farming industry is moving towards a highly automated and intelligent future, and as a result, the standards and threshold for pig farmers will be higher,” said Zhu.
Expert repairs
Again, Other experts believe that large-scale factory farms increase the likelihood of larger disease outbreaks than ever before.
“Intensive facilities can reduce interactions between domestic and wild animals and their diseases, but if a disease does enter, it can break out among animals like wildfire,” said Matthew Hayek, professor of environmental studies at the University of California. Guardian.New York.
“I’ve heard a lot of reports on ‘biosecurity’, ‘efficiency’ and ‘sustainability’. “We hear the same argument at US facilities, but there is little evidence that these busy facilities actually have any of these benefits.”
Dirk Pfeiffer, Senior Lecturer in One Health at City University of Hong Kong, agrees:The higher the density of animals, the greater the risk of spreading and multiplying infectious pathogens, as well as the mutation potential.
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