Desperate measures: Chinese companies are breeding giant pigs to offset pork shortage
China's pig industry is ready to adopt desperate measures to cope with a deficit of 10 million to 15 million tonnes of pork predicted by the analysts. One proposed solution, embraced by producer Pang Cong in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi, is to breed giant pigs capable of producing 110 to 130 kilos of meat and fetching over 10,000 yuan ($1,399) at slaughter. Currently, farmer Pang Cong is rearing pigs to weights of around 500kg but he has plans to rear bigger animals, comparable in size and weight to a polar bear, according to Bloomberg.
And it is not just the small producers who are adopting this farming technique but also medium-size and large enterprises that are looking to increase the size of the pigs in order to achieve a higher productivity per animal. Wens Foodstuffs Group Co, Cofco Meat Holdings Ltd. and Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co. have all confirmed that they are selectively breeding to increase the average weight of their pigs.
China has slaughtered around 250 million to 300 million pigs in the last 12 months due to ASF outbreaks and the market is expected to have a shortage in pork supply for the next couple of years as the virus is still present in all of the country's provinces. Still, pigs of the size of a polar bear have to face a number of health complications. Broken legs and a general lack of mobility are two previously observed issues in these morbidly obese animals, and both are important welfare concerns.
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