The world’s biggest single-building pig farm has now opened in China in the Hubei province and will reportedly slaughter 1 million pigs a year.
The 26-story skyscraper looks like a giant apartment building that overlooks the main road. The building is a pig farm that can slaughter 1.2 million pigs every year. However, critics say that this will increase the risk of animal disease outbreaks.
The building was the country’s answer to keep up with the demand for pork, which is the most popular animal meat in China. The building first began production at the start of October when they added 3,700 sows onto the farm. One of the biggest concerns is waste, which the company says will be treated to use to generate biogas. Farmers and residents in the area are worried about an odor issue once it is fully up and running at full capacity.
Animal Agriculture Climate Change
Dirk Pfeiffer, chair professor at One Health at City University of Hong Kong, told The Guardian, “The higher density of animals, the higher risk of infectious pathogen spread and amplification, as well as potential for mutation. The probably even more important question will be whether this type of production is consistent with the need to move towards reduced meat consumption, considering the apparently unstoppable threat of devastating climate change,” he said.
More than half the pigs in the world now live in China, and with the vast majority of these living in super-sized factory farms, the prospect of being a pig in China is not something to celebrate.
The dog and cat meat industries in China have come under fire recently after their cruel practices were exposed, and one can only imagine what conditions are like for the poor animals being kept in facilities with thousands of pigs and one main goal: to produce huge volumes of pork for a little as possible. The needs, desires, and natural behaviours of these pigs are bottom of the agenda, and given China’s track record on animal rights, plus the extreme volume of pigs in these mega-farms, it’s fair to say that this could be the worst place in the world to be a pig.
Original source: https://www.onegreenplanet.org
