中國將豬放入 13 層樓的“養豬旅館”以防止細菌滋生 (1 of 2)

Recently Yahoo New on-line reported the following:

China’s Putting Pigs in 13-Story ‘Hog Hotels’ to Keep Germs Out (1of 2)

Bloomberg News

Sun., August 1, 2021, 10:59 p.m.

(Bloomberg) -- China is taking hog biosecurity to new levels -- 13 stories in fact.

That’s the height of a building in southern China where more than 10,000 pigs are kept in a condominium-style complex, complete with restricted access, security cameras, in-house veterinary services and carefully prepared meals.

The seemingly luxurious conditions represent a state-of-the-art approach to biosecurity in which pigs -- the main source of meat in China -- are shielded from viruses, including the devastating African swine fever that wiped out half the nation’s hogs in the two years before the coronavirus pandemic emerged.

Nicknamed “hog hotels,” these gigantic vertical farms are being built by companies, including Muyuan Foods and New Hope Group, emulating the strict controls major suppliers in other countries have used to prevent outbreaks of the devastating disease.

China is copying best-practices from Europe and the U.S. to close its biosecurity gap, said Rupert Claxton, the U.K.-based meat director at consultant Gira, who has been providing advice to farmers and businesses for two decades. “In 20 years, it’s done what the Americans took probably 100 years to do,” he said.

Lethal African swine fever, which sickens pigs much like Ebola kills humans, caused a dramatic outbreak in China in 2018. Within a year, roughly half the nation’s herd of more than 400 million pigs had been wiped out -- more than the entire annual output of the U.S. and Brazil combined -- leading to rocketing prices and unprecedented imports.

Top Priority

Food security became a top priority, and as inflation surged to the highest in eight years, the government had to turn to emergency sources of frozen meat to cool prices. New agriculture policies were instituted to accelerate a shift to large-scale, industrial operations over backyard farms that have traditionally fattened pigs on raw kitchen scraps and swill -- the main sources of African swine fever.

Now, domestic hog numbers recovered more swiftly than anticipated because mega farms have expanded capacity so aggressively. Wholesale pork prices have tumbled so much that it tripped the government’s new alert system, prompting authorities to begin buying pork for state reserves and to shore up the market.

Still, the virus threat persists, with 11 incidents reported so far in 2021, prompting the culling of more than 2,000 pigs, China’s farm ministry said in July. The emergence of new strains that appear to cause milder symptoms and have a longer incubation period are complicating efforts to detect and respond to outbreaks, the ministry said.

In developed countries, pig production is dominated by bigger farms in fewer hands. This has been seen for decades in the U.S., Denmark and Netherlands, which have among the best biosecurity standards globally and never reported a single African swine fever outbreak in recent years.

(to be continued)

Translation

（彭博社）- 中國正在將生豬生物安全提升到一個新的高度 - 實際上是 13 層高。

這是中國南方一座建築物的高度。在那裡，一萬多頭豬被關在一個公寓式的綜合體中，配備了限制出入、保安攝影鏡頭、內部獸醫服務和精心準備的飯菜。

看似奢華的環境代表了一種最先進的生物安全方法，使豬 - 中國的主要肉類來源 - 免受病毒的侵害，包括毀滅性的非洲豬瘟。該豬瘟在冠狀病毒大流行出現前兩年, 曾消滅了中國一半的生豬。

這些綽號為“豬旅館”的巨大垂直農場由牧原食品 和新希望集團等公司建造，效仿其他國家的主要供應商, 為防止毀滅性疾病爆發而採取的嚴格控制措施。

諮詢公司 Gira 駐英國的肉類主管Rupert Claxton表示，中國正在複製歐洲和美國的最佳方法，以縮小其生物安全差距，他為農民和企業提供建議已有二十年了。他說: “在 20 年內，它完成了美國人可能用了 100 年才完成的事情” 。

2018 年，致命的非洲豬瘟使豬生病，就像伊波拉病毒殺死人類一樣，在中國引起了相當大的爆發。 一年之內，全國 4 億多頭豬大約有一半被消滅 - 超過了美國和巴西的全年的總產量- 導致價格飛漲和前所未有的進口。

當務之急

食品安全成為重中之重，隨著通脹飆升至八年來的最高水平，政府不得不求助於緊急冷凍肉來源來冷卻價格。又制定了新的農業政策，以加速由後院農場, 向大規模工業化經營轉變。在後院農場, 傳統上是用生的廚餘和豬餿來養豬 - 這是非洲豬瘟的主要來源。

現在，由於大型農場如此積極地擴大產能，國內生豬數量的恢復速度比預期的要快。批發豬肉價格大幅下跌，以至於觸發了政府的新警戒系統，促使當局開始為國家儲備購買豬肉並支撐市場。

儘管如此，中國農業部在 7 月表示，病毒威脅仍然存在，2021 年迄今已報告了 11 宗事件，促使撲殺了 2,000 多頭豬。該部表示，由於似乎會導致症狀較輕, 且潛伏期較長的新菌株出現，使得檢測和應對疫情的工作變得複雜。

在發達國家，養豬生產由規模較大,人数較少的農場主宰。幾十年來，美國、丹麥和荷蘭已經看到這種情況。這些國家擁有全球最好的生物安全標準，而且近年來從未報告過一次爆發非洲豬瘟。

(待續)

Note:  Gira as a consulting group, has provided strategic market consultancy and forecasting at every level of the food supply chain since 1970. They are a team of consultants and researchers based throughout Europe and around the world, with its head office close to Geneva. The team comprises economists, strategists, agronomists, business analysts, scientists, consumer specialists, and linguists etc. (https://www.girafood.com/who-we-are/)