A pharaonic project resembling a dystopia: China has just inaugurated the first of a series of piggeries on an unprecedented scale, which can house 600,000 animals in a 26-storey complex. The Middle Kingdom, the world’s largest pork producer and consumer, is seeking to achieve self-sufficiency in pork with these largely automated factories, which raise ethical questions about the treatment of animals.
The Chinese, known for their propensity for gigantism, are redefining the concept of “megapigs”. The vertical farm inaugurated last month in Ezhou, Hubei province, alone is equivalent to more than 200 Quebec megapigs, which house around 3,000 head of cattle each.
It is “the tallest and largest pig pen in the world,” said Lin Jin, general manager of Zhong Xin Kai Wei Modern Breeding Company, in a promotional video.
A report from New China TV, the state channel that broadcasts in English, gives a glimpse inside this monumental building. We see enclosures in a vast space where weak natural light pierces. Everything is controlled from a console located on the ground floor: water and electricity supply, manure and methane evacuation, air conditioning in summer and heating in winter.
Eventually, 25,000 pigs per floor will be housed on 24 of the 26 floors. Livestock will be taken to the slaughterhouse integrated into the industrial complex by six elevators which can each hold between 60 and 65 adult pigs. By the end of 2022, the company expects to have brought 20,000 sows to the facility — and more in the following months. Each female gives birth to two litters of a dozen piglets per year.
Shock wave
The inauguration of this colossal industrial complex aroused disbelief in the agri-food industry all over the world, including in Quebec, which exports most of its pork production, particularly to China.
“A 26-storey pigsty sounds crazy. It’s an experiment, there is no model like that,” says Maurice Doyon, professor at the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences at Laval University.
China is seeking to secure its pork supply after an epidemic of swine fever which decimated nearly half of its herd in 2018-2019. This crisis has sent shockwaves through the second largest country in the world, which consumes phenomenal amounts of pork, explains the professor.
He believes that the Asian giant’s desire for self-sufficiency remains a low short-term risk for Quebec pork producers, who export significantly to China. Even by becoming self-sufficient in pork production, it is likely that China will continue to import pork, explains Maurice Doyon: the country will undoubtedly export value-added cuts and buy low-end quarters of meat abroad.
Beware of viruses
China never does things by halves, stresses Maurice Doyon. In the hope of achieving pig self-sufficiency, the empire relies on technology — and human intervention reduced to its simplest expression — to produce the greatest quantities of animals at the lowest cost.
Pig manure will be recovered to generate electricity from biogas. Robotization will limit labor costs. Grouping hundreds of thousands of pigs will save time and money.
The company Zhong Xin Kai Wei Élevage Moderne claims that the establishment will meet the highest sanitary standards, particularly in terms of ventilation. Despite these precautions, the unprecedented concentration of pigs in an establishment increases the risk of epizootics, like the one that has devastated the Chinese livestock in recent years, notes Professor Maurice Doyon.
Ironically, this industrial complex is located very close to the city of Wuhan, where the COVID-19 pandemic originated, experts point out.
Stéphane Godbout, researcher at the Institute for Research and Development in Agro-Environment (IRDA), also recalls the risk of disease transmission in such a crowded building. “If a very resistant virus enters the farm, it can be catastrophic,” says this engineer specializing in breeding strategies and management of animal waste, particularly in the pig industry.
The claims of the Chinese to set up the most efficient systems – for ventilation as well as the recovery of slurry and possibly water – seem to him credible. The researcher considers it plausible that the environmental footprint of the project is smaller, per head of cattle, than that of traditional piggeries, which do not have the means to implement such sophisticated techniques.
Animal wellbeing
The development of these non-standard farms, however, raises ethical questions, agrees Stéphane Godbout. “We are far from a family farm in a bucolic setting,” he underlines.
Pigs raised in this factory will see very little natural light in their short lives. They will spend their time in a pen, far from the meadows, and will never roll in the mud. But do the animals born in a smaller-scale piggery, like those in Quebec, have a more captivating life? “The question is legitimate. There is a social reflection to be made on the concept of industrialization pushed to its limit”, says Stéphane Godbout.
The Quebec rules provide in particular that farm animals must be able to drink and feed themselves in sufficient quantity and be free from injury or stress – while waiting to be taken to the slaughterhouse. Pigs are sensitive beings who become nervous, especially when moving, emphasizes the researcher.
“We can easily say that it doesn’t make sense, a company like this, but we have to wonder why China decided to do this,” argues Stéphane Godbout. The answer is obvious, he continues: because consumers want to eat at low cost.
For his part, Professor Maurice Doyon points out that the pressures are increasing for ethical breeding, where animals have space to move and can go outside. But at the same time consumers are demanding low prices.