'Not Enough Pork in the World' To Deal With China's Demand for Meat (theguardian.com) 149
The cost of living in China has outstripped the 3% government target for the first time in a decade, and a big part of the problem is the soaring price of pork, which is being driven up by a widespread outbreak of African swine fever (ASF). From a report: Pork is a big deal in China. The average Chinese person gets through about 30kg (66 pounds) of pork a year (by comparison, people in US eat about 26kg of beef a year and UK consumers about 18kg). Since August 2018, when China notified the World Organisation for Animal Health that ASF was in the country, the disease has spread with extraordinary speed. Some 40% of Chinese pigs -- hundreds of millions of animals -- have now been lost, and the result has been a chronic shortage of pork and rocketing prices. The Chinese government has been forced to dig into its gigantic emergency reserves of frozen meat. "The producer price has risen 125% since July," said Rupert Claxton of international food consultancy Girafood. That increase has helped drive up China's inflation rate, which in October broke through the government target of 3% to hit 3.8%.
Previous story (Score:5, Funny)
It does give a new meaning to complains about government spending on pork though.
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The current tariff structures are not beneficial, so China will likely force a different vassal state to produce pork for them
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Didn't Shuanghui buy Smithfield Foods, maker of some of the best pork products in America's grocery stores?
What makes Smithfield the best pork products in the U.S. grocery stores (I'm assuming you meant U.S. here, because I highly doubt there's much Smithfield Foods products in South American markets)? Marketing? It has to be marketing, because the way they raise their pork is inhumane and unhealthy. It produces inferior meat to pasture raised pork, not to mention it's negative impact on the environment.
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Can we send them the F35? All of the parts, and the designers and lobbyists involved in creating it? I've not seen a greater pile of rotten pork barrel since the original design of the US Space Shuttle.
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farts aren't the problem, burps are.
Re:Previous story (Score:5, Informative)
There are also breeds of hogs. Here in Texas, to keep the wild hog population stable, 70% of them a year have to be eradicated, because they are a cross between Russian boars, local javelinas, farm pigs, and whatever porcine thing looked sexy to a nearby boar. This, they are very hardy, very smart, very aggressive, and won't even get near a trap. Poison is outlawed, so the main means of getting these disposed of is to hire hunters who are able to bag an entire sounder.
Chinese hogs may be sick, but there are many other breeds, and what kills one breed en masse, others will just laugh at.
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Chinese hogs may be sick, but there are many other breeds, and what kills one breed en masse, others will just laugh at.
And how tasty are these other hogs? That's the usual problem. There's frequently plenty of other breeds, but without extensive human intervention in their DNA (selective breeding, the blunt hammer of DNA manipulation!), they're often not nearly as good to eat as the breed that's been manipulated for the purpose.
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It's not just a matter of taste; temperament matters, too. Farm animals have been bred to be docile around humans (at least compared to wild or feral counterparts) and to deal well with being packed into comparatively tight spaces. Feral hogs are notoriously ill tempered, which is not something farmers will want to deal with.
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Hunters let their .308 deal with them.
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And how tasty are these other hogs?
The wild boar I've had has been freaking fantastic. YMMV of course, but honestly, go out and find the answer that question yourself--you likely won't be disappointed.
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I've always heard the best pork is from acorn-fed hogs. We have feral hogs running all through our oak-covered California hills and they too are considered invasive pests. I'd love to try a a wild ham from them.
If anyone wants to bag one on my street after they dig up our yards, I didn't see or hear nothin'.
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I've always heard the best pork is from acorn-fed hogs. We have feral hogs running all through our oak-covered California hills and they too are considered invasive pests. I'd love to try a a wild ham from them.
I haven't had a wild ham, but I have had wild pork ribs. And they were frankly some of the best meat I've ever eaten.
If anyone wants to bag one on my street after they dig up our yards, I didn't see or hear nothin'.
They just have to get them someplace where they're not too close to a road or what have you, making it illegal to shoot. And you need a hunting license, but tags are either cheap or not required depending on where you are, and there's no limit.
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If you are talking about spanish black feet, it is not only the acorn, but the breed/race.
I doubt feeding a random pig breed with a certain food makes a big (noticeable) difference to their taste.
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They are just as tasty as any other hog, perhaps if not more because they are not the same exact cloned breed of pig.
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That is nonsense. ... bottom line most pork tastes the same, well, unless it is a modern hyper fast growing no fat water meat pork.
The breeding is for size, colour, fat versus meat ratio, cold resistance, "friendlyness" versus "aggressive"
Modern western pork actually does not taste like it should, not enough time to grow and not enough fat. (I hate `pure fat, but I acknowledge its contribution to taste)
Re:Previous story (Score:5, Informative)
Wild hogs are not a result of javelina breeding with feral hogs, because they are vastly different species and unable to interbreed [texas.gov]
Re:Previous story (Score:5, Informative)
Are you sure that hogs in US are resistant to ASF? This thing's primary spreading vector in Europe right now is wild boars, which are just as susceptible to the disease, and carry it over nation borders.
It's why Denmark built a boar fence on its German border. Denmark has a huge pig farming industry, and they're deathly afraid of German boars bringing ASF over the border.
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A vaccine sounds like a much more likely and quicker prospect, but any biological solution looks to be some time out, and US pigs are vulnerable.
Barrier disease control is one area where concentrated animal feeding operations shine, as was noted when the novel H1N1 outbreak occurred. For influenza in genera
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It's why Denmark built a boar fence on its German border. Denmark has a huge pig farming industry, and they're deathly afraid of German boars bringing ASF over the border.
And here we have people claiming walls don't work. Looks like someone forgot to tell the EU.
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The so-called fence has a hole in it for every road and farm track crossing the border. The fence also does not cover waterways, and pigs can swim.
Boars are not the real reason for this fence.
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And TDS rears its ugly head in yet another example of mindless projection yet again.
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ASF getting across the border would mean a massive improvement for the Danish environment and finances, freeing hundreds of entrepreneurs from having to rely on government handouts and encouraging them to go into actually profitable ventures.
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Danish pig farming industry is wildly profitable. Troll elsewhere, would you kindly?
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Danish pig farming is absolutely not profitable. There is the occasional good year, but most years it lives off the government teat and in bad years it relies on government bailouts of the banks who lend to farmers. Except for the portion whose actual business is highly leveraged speculation in produce futures and currency -- but they only use their "farms" as collateral anyway.
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It worked for quite a while at this point. Denmark remains ASF-free as of writing this.
P.S. Pillboxes and minefields are not the same thing as a wildlife fence.
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True.
In the news, a woman was killed by a pack of wild boars [bbc.com].
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. . . the main means of getting these disposed of is to hire hunters who are able to bag an entire sounder.
Chinese hogs may be sick, but there are many other breeds, and what kills one breed en masse, others will just laugh at.
Can you provide information about where hunters are being hired?
I ask because it isn't just me. If you ask hunters why they don't hunt hogs in Texas, the reason is almost always the same. The ranchers charge way too much to hunt. A normal price is $100 per day and an extra charge of $50 per hog shot. To be clear, that is the price charged to the hunter, bring your kid along and now you are looking at $200 per day.
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Can you provide information about where hunters are being hired?
I ask because it isn't just me. If you ask hunters why they don't hunt hogs in Texas, the reason is almost always the same. The ranchers charge way too much to hunt. A normal price is $100 per day and an extra charge of $50 per hog shot. To be clear, that is the price charged to the hunter, bring your kid along and now you are looking at $200 per day.
My friend and I have have had landowners (west of DFW) literally offer to stock 5.56 on their property for us, if we would bring our ARs by occasionally and blow away the packs of invasive feral hogs tearing up the place (see? a valid use for 30rd mags!). We didn't, mainly because we didn't want to have to deal with 30 dead hogs at once. The hunting lease my friend was on also encouraged them to shoot as many feral hogs as they could, and even put bait out in view of the blinds.
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Feral hogs attacked and killed a woman in Texas a couple days ago.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25... [cnn.com]
Re:Previous story (Score:4, Informative)
China realized that by blocking pork imports from the US, they were hurting themselves since no one else in the world could step up their supply. So it's one of the few times China begrudgingly lifted their US pork import restriction because well, it was hurting China more than it was hurting the US. It was lifted quite recently.
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China realized that by blocking pork imports from the US, they were hurting themselves since no one else in the world could step up their supply. So it's one of the few times China begrudgingly lifted their US pork import restriction because well, it was hurting China more than it was hurting the US. It was lifted quite recently.
They recently lifted the restriction on imports from Canada as well.
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I seem to recall a previous story on Slashdot not all that long ago about the U.S. having the biggest stockpile of pork in decades
That's mostly centered around Washington though.
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Your dates are off--DC has been in the pork business since 1790, and has been the world's largest producer and consumer for at least the last century.
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Hmm...40 million pounds of pork. Sold to China. Divided 1.3 billion ways...so about half an ounce of pork per person. Not half an ounce a day, or half an ounce a week, half an ounce ONCE.
No, doesn't look like out pork reserve would matter a hill of beans in this case.
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From my memory of reading about this catastrophe, the PRC normally has a herd of 300 million pigs, the US 70 million. The statistic of 40% of their herd having died or been culled is both old and optimistic, their system is not based on truth, which has more than a little to do with their so for complete inability to control the outbreak. Bet on the percentages, official and likely, getting a lot higher, and note also the disease has spread to their neighbors. The world is facing a massive shortage of an
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No, doesn't look like out pork reserve would matter a hill of beans in this case
If you added a hill of beans, you'd have pork and beans, and that would stretch it out considerably...
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You know, that's a pretty good conspiracy theory.
Even if you take out Trump and the trade war, the idea that someone has come up with a genetically engineered virus to weaken an enemy's livestock makes for a pretty good tale.
I don't know if its true or not, but you could argue it would be "safe" because the genetic engineering targets something unique about the enemy's livestock and that there's so much geofencing related to living livestock it would be hard to get infected back here.
You should take this to
Convert? (Score:1)
There will be plenty soon (Score:2, Troll)
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Republicans don't like the word "green" in there. Perhaps call it "Soylent Coal Day".
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So remember, Tuesday is Soylent Green day.
Ah, I was wondering about what this "New Green Deal" was all about.
Kinda sorta like "Black Friday Deals," but with "the other white meat" that's good for you heart.
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Go right ahead, Slashdot, mod me down as 'troll' or 'flamebait' all you like, you goddamned well know I'm right. S
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> remember, Tuesday is Soylent Green day.
Geeze, and it's not impossible to conceive of them selling meat from Uyghurs or Falun Gong members into the open market, if they're harvesting them for organs anyway.
This isn't "real Socialism" either, BTW.
I just had a half pound of bacon for breakfast (Score:2)
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Where do we place over/under bets on your first heart attack?
Insects are a great way to get protein. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Call us again when you can get bacon from a cockroach.
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I'm not excited to eat bugs, but pigs don't give a damn. Feed the bugs to pigs.
Terrible Comparison (Score:2)
Apples to Oranges comparison. How much pork does an American or Brit eat?
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I would have guessed that they were comparing the most commonly eaten meat in each country, but I can't imagine people in the US eat more beef than chicken per year. Without some clarification it certainly does seem to be a meaningless comparison.
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I would have guessed that they were comparing the most commonly eaten meat in each country, but I can't imagine people in the US eat more beef than chicken per year. Without some clarification it certainly does seem to be a meaningless comparison.
You're correct, more chicken than beef [nationalch...ouncil.org], at least as of last year.
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the americans and the brits are the pork...
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The comparison is correct, because it compares the most popular meat being consumed. In US and UK, that's beef. In China, that's pork.
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Category being talked about is obviously animal meat, not poultry.
But if you need to go into massive mental contortions to justify your claims, that's on you.
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And yes, you do need to take a course in taxonomy, you idiot.
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Dear idiot. Take a course in taxonomy.
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UK is a classical pork country since 2000 years, I doubt beef took over.
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Apples to Oranges comparison. How much pork does an American or Brit eat?
As much as I can, really. I had somewhere between a third and a half of a pound of ham this morning.
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Apples to Oranges comparison. How much pork does an American or Brit eat?
If you got to pork.org [pork.org], they say that China eats 88.1 lbs* per year compared to the USA's 64.4. The UK is part of the EU which is listed in at higher than China with 88.9.
*Carcass weight
I love eating meat (Score:2)
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Good news! Your ColdDeadHands are meat!
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Quick! (Score:2)
I gotta run - heading to Costco now to stock up on bacon!
Goodjob CCP. (Score:2, Informative)
One of the major food industries has had to be nuked from orbit and has yet to be rebooted, and the primary sign of distress is that the inflation rate has exceeded the target somewhat. Not starvation, not panic in the streets, not riots. There's a lot of work ahead, but this could have been a lot worse if the government hadn't learned a thing or two from all the other times it has starved segments of the population, and actively decided not to let that happen again.
Yes, I'm actually praising them for simpl
Re:Goodjob CCP. (Score:5, Insightful)
... Yes, I'm actually praising them for simply managing a crisis and not being completely evil. ...
If you've been paying attention to what they've been doing to the non-Han portion of the population you might change your opinion of how evil they can be. While Republicans get called 'literally Hitler' for daring to enforce borders a mass incarceration and indoctrination effort is under way and hardly a word is spoken. If you want to see what real racism looks like, not microaggression and imagined aggressions, check out how China treats the non-Han portion of their population. Citations: https://www.theatlantic.com/in... [theatlantic.com] https://www.theepochtimes.com/... [theepochtimes.com]
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...which is all completely irrelevant to the situation at hand.
Even when someone or something is a shitheel, you should be willing to admit when they get something right. Otherwise why should they bother paying attention to what you think?
Just do a naval embargo (Score:2)
Problem solved.
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Yet in America pork is nearly worthless. A 200 Lbs pig sells for less than $50 at slaughter.
Meanwhile in America (Score:2)
Whole Boston butt is sold at 1 dollar a pound in large vacuum bags.
there is always one sloution (Score:2)
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The US has less people and more land. Hell the US government pays farmers to plant corn just to give them something to do. From an agricultural perspective, we have nothing to worry about. Indeed to a large degree we have TOO much cheap food, which has caused all sorts of other problems.
Agriculture is indeed one of the few things where we're still exporting more than we're importing ($140 billion in exports in 2018, compared to $129 billion in imports).
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You think that will affect only the U.S. of A? How cute.
If Russia wants to be invaded by China, they should very well try. At that point, China will need the extra resources to not completely let its population starve from hunger and cold. And the Russian carbohydrates are the ones in closest reach.
Making Yellowstone erupt is bad. I'm not sure how bad because there are not many reliable sources about the ordeal last time it happened. But what scientists could dig out of the ground... it was bad.
It may be wo
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Europe will have to live with only one rotation of winter-hardy crops a year,
No idea what you want to say. Unless recently, Europe always only had one harvest per year.
And the second harvests we have now since 2 or 3 year are experimental and mostly around stuff like canola. And I'm not sure if it is for harvest (they are flowering right now) or just for plowing under as fertilizer.
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Putting a large (multi-megaton) nuke (or ten) several kil
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We have a "Strategic Meat Reserve" [slashdot.org], it's just not owned by the U.S. government.
Yes, it does. Bacon is yummy, sell the rest.
"Bellies have seen a magnified inventory increase because demand is mostly domestic, unlike cuts such as ham, for which overseas buying can help reduce reserves."
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They have a strategic petroleum reserve, just like any reasonably developed industrial nation. And China has a much greater need of it, because they import a far larger portion of what they consume.
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I'm pretty sure we have Strategic Reserves of pretty much everything: pork, cheese, helium, oil, wool, left-handed smoke benders. Everything but common sense.
Re:I don't see the problem (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think you quite comprehend what kind of starvation is being talked about when we're talking about communist starvation events if you think that what US had during Great Depression is in any way comparable.
In Ukraine/Southern Russia/Western Kazakhstan places worst hit by Soviet caused starvation, they had human parts markets. That is markets where people who died were sold for meat.
Just the death toll was in multiple millions. Far more who were crippled by starvation and opportunistic diseases that followed it and children who had their development permanently impaired.
In China, it was even worse during Cultural Revolution/Great Leap Forward, with death toll in several tens of millions. Horrific consequences of that starvation event are still seen in the Chinese "lost generation", who are those people you see in crazy "grab everything" videos that surface about Chinese tourists who enter all you can eat buffets and such. They're the people who learned that if something is on offer, it doesn't matter if taking all of it is going to hurt you tomorrow. You must take it and take it all, because if you don't, you will starve today.
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Indeed. The only thing we can be confident is that you genuinely have no clue what you're talking about.
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Does not really matter, as you have no clue either. /me looking at your post before about "communist starvation"
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Resident "Germany controls wind" wind expert also doesn't know about Holodomor and Great Leap Forward/Cultural Revolution. Colour me surprised.
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I know about them, but the starvation were accidents after a civil war, control wind freak. ....
Has not really anything to do with communism
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Chinese civil war had nothing to do with communism! Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution were about civil war!
You are a gift that keeps on giving.
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I like how you still can't produce a single coherent counter-argument, and just double down on "I have nothing, and that means you don't know what you're talking about".
Commissariat would be proud of you comrade.
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Thank you for your work citizen. 50 cents will be added to your account shortly.