China’s economy depends on a literal piggy bank. Until about the 1990s, most Chinese citizens ate meat so rarely that it only made up about 3 percent of their calories per year. They just couldn’t afford to eat better. Now, with China an economic contender, the average Chinese citizen eats about 40 kilograms (85 lb) of pork each year.
In 2007, blue ear pig disease killed 45 million pigs in China. The rise in pork prices caused inflation throughout the economy. Panic buying had Chinese customers literally crushing each other to get scarce pork from supermarkets.
The communist government became so concerned that they established a strategic pork reserve to stabilize prices. It includes both live pigs and frozen pork. When prices are too low, the government buys pork to make it scarcer and more expensive. When prices are too high, the government sells pork. These moves are more symbolic than anything else. The Chinese government can’t control enough pigs to affect prices on their own. But their signals influence what others do.
It’s almost crazy how far-reaching the effects of these pigs go. For example, they’re destroying large swaths of the Amazon rain forest. China can’t produce enough feed for the pigs, so it imports large amounts of grain and soy. Brazil and Argentina are cutting down thousands, and possibly millions, of hectares of rain forest to grow soy to feed China’s pigs. Some plant species have already been destroyed.
The antibiotics added to this feed are creating superbugs among both animals and humans. Even the animals’ waste is causing a problem. There’s so much of it that it’s contributing to global warming. --
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