大汉奸柳传志
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2015
- Messages
- 3,601
- Reaction score
- -24
- Country
- Location
Chinese consumers think US pigs are less contaminated than Asian swine
Rhys Blakely Washington
Poor Americans are in danger of being overwhelmed by a noxious rising tide of pig manure as China develops a taste for US pork.
American pigs are prized by China’s newly prosperous middle classes because the meat they produce is less likely to be contaminated than that from Asian swine.
This is potentially good news for America’s hog farmers but a rather less welcome development for their long-suffering neighbours.
Nowhere is Asia’s appetite for safe meat being felt more sharply than in North Carolina. The southern state has been a centre of pig production for decades. The hundreds of giant hog farms that dot the countryside are worth some $2.5 billion a year. With all that brass, however, comes a considerable amount of muck.
The state’s 10 million swine mostly reside in vast sheds, next to which are built equally vast swimming pool-like excavations. Known, euphemistically, as “lagoons” they hold millions of gallons of pig faeces and urine. These porcine cesspits are emptied at intervals, the contents sometimes sprayed as a fine mist across fields as fertiliser.
The stench has long been an issue, but it appears to be growing worse as North Carolina’s pig farmers begin to raise hogs for the Far East.
The substances that waft from factory pig farms include hydrogen sulphide, which smells like rotten eggs, and ammonia, another potent irritant. A study by the University of Iowa documented the effects on nearby residents, including burning eyes, breathing difficulties, headaches, anxiety and elevated blood pressure. Pigs are said to produce five times as much waste as humans, with a 250lb hog capable of emitting 15lbs of manure a day.
According to experts, the hazards posed by the swelling lagoons of pig manure are worsened because nearby populations tend to be poor.
“These communities are disproportionately composed of low-income people of colour who have fewer protections from environmental hazards, less ability to leave their homes during highexposure periods and less access to medical and clinical services, than residents of higherincome communities,” said a recent report.
Yet the pig industry shows little sign of slowing down. In 2013, China’s largest pork producer, WH Group, bought Smithfield, an American rival, for $4.7 billion. The deal marked the largest acquisition of a US company by a Chinese firm. The Chinese parent company has said that it is determined to increase its hog production. In North Carolina, however, the locals are hitting back: in the past year they have filed two-dozen lawsuits complaining about the smell from Smithfield pig farms. The lawsuits have claimed that blame for North Carolina’s rising tide of pig waste ultimately rests with China’s Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army.
A US judge ruled this month that such references to the forces that govern Beijing were deliberately inflammatory and not relevant. He ordered them to be deleted, but getting rid of the underlying problem will not be as easy.
Another malady linked to the farms is depression, which seems unsurprising. If the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, the stench is unbearable, locals say. “People feel like they’re prisoners in their own homes,” Devon Hall, a resident of Duplin County, told the Greensboro News & Record
China’s hunger for pork leaves bad smell in southern US | The Times
