Bacon!!!!!! [Archive] - Kung Fu Magazine Forums

GeneChing

09-14-2012, 05:47 PM

Did we just lose another forum member here?

Man Ingests 10 lbs of Bacon Rectally, Dies (http://www.modernprimate.com/man-ingests-10-lbs-of-bacon-rectally-dies/)
April 24, 2012 at 8:00 am
by Chris Menning

An attempt at viral fame ended in tragedy Monday when a 22 year-old social media intern took his love of internet humor too far.

Joshua Flaherty of New Brunswick, NJ passed away at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital late Monday night due to Sepsis, a bacterial infection resulting from a gastrointestinal perforation, following the rectal insertion of precisely 10 pounds of hickory smoked bacon.

“Josh had a really big heart, and he just loved giving people what they wanted,” said Flaherty’s mother Linda. “When he told me about the project, I thought to myself, Josh is a smart kid and he’s made good at this Internet thing so far. What could go wrong?”

Not everyone who knew Joshua was so confident of his abilities.

“I blame Reddit,” stated Sheila, childhood friend and next door neighbor of the Flahertys. “Every time someone posts something with bacon on it, people act like it’s the greatest thing, like they’ve never seen obscene amounts of bacon before. It’s like, look, I get it. Bacon is good. That’s objectively true. No one is saying that it isn’t. It’s just that there’s no need to fake an orgasm every time someone posts a picture of bacon. But with Josh… you just couldn’t tell him when enough was enough. As long as the Internet patronizes this kind of behavior, showering people with upvotes for bacon, people like [Joshua] will take it to new extremes.”

Another friend who wishes to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from other message board members had this to say:

“Before going through with it, Josh confided in me that he didn’t even really like bacon that much. He said that if he had to choose between bacon and Werther’s Originals, he’d take the Werther’s. But what Josh really loved was internet memes. So in a sense, he loved the idea of bacon, and the Internet’s obsession with bacon, more than life itself.”

While obsessive bacon fandom is common on websites like Reddit, the practice isn’t exclusive to the web. The 1994 sketch comedy show The State famously featured a bit in which Robert Ben Garant stated “I eat bacon every day,” before donning a dress made of bacon, ending in a musical number about bacon.

Although the video of Joshua’s world record setting insertion of 10 pounds of bacon was taken down from Youtube before most had a chance to see it, many don’t see it as a complete loss. According to his mother, ”[the video] may be gone, but Josh’s story will live on. And in that way, he’ll live forever.”

Lucas

09-14-2012, 05:57 PM

omg gene you made me lol so bad, truly masterful, sir.

wenshu

10-19-2012, 05:23 PM

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Francis_Bacon_after_Paul_van_Somer.jpg
http://cdn100.iofferphoto.com/img/1130569200/_i/8959332/1.jpg
http://9.mshcdn.com/wp-content/gallery/tumblr-accounts-we-wished-still-updated/tumblr_ll0631yaty1qz4cuyo1_1280.jpg

David Jamieson

10-20-2012, 07:18 AM

This thread pleases me.

Dale Dugas

10-20-2012, 09:45 AM

Aww, I was thinking you were going to be asking the cupcake chunner something.

nice pics.

wenshu

10-20-2012, 10:30 AM

http://img.foodnetwork.com/FOOD/2009/04/14/FNM060109ContestWinner001_s4x3_lg.jpg

Dale Dugas

10-20-2012, 11:25 AM

Nice one!

Pork fat makes everything yummy

Dale Dugas

10-24-2012, 06:10 AM

it seems our cowardly little chunner Pork Belly does not know what the following photo means or represents.

http://i679.photobucket.com/albums/vv155/Boston_Baguazhang/bwlionbig-1.jpg

He is a lame chunner.

sanjuro_ronin

10-24-2012, 06:15 AM

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.urlesque.com/media/2010/04/foodporn.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PN56M6c04vU/S5G__1hdiyI/AAAAAAAAIu0/JwsxqFZov1w/s400/bacon-bikini.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HjcbHH5zlyw/Ty-R8211vuI/AAAAAAAAD9I/nwgqqzp0PBo/s1600/funny-pictures-history-bacon-natures-heroin.jpg

Dale Dugas

10-24-2012, 06:16 AM

nice one, Brother!

Your Photo Fu is wicked strong!

MightyB

10-24-2012, 06:28 AM

You're going to break the internet again. :)

Bacon

10-25-2012, 12:05 AM

I just saw this thread. I.... I think I might cry greasy tears of joy :D

GeneChing

01-02-2013, 12:42 PM

Jack in the Box offered a vegetarian bacon shake (http://www.jackinthebox.com/nutrition/product.php?prod_id=bacon_shake_regular_%2816_oz.% 29&cat_id=8)? WTF?

Jack in the Box's Bacon Shake is Vegetarian...Not Healthy (http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/jack-boxs-bacon-shake-vegetarian-not-healthy.html)
Jess Root
Living / Green Food
February 25, 2012

This newest fast food frenzy froths with so many problems, it's enough to make me fully vegan. A list is in order:

According to Jack in the Box, it's vegetarian-- if you don't mind taking your synthetic swine taste via flavored syrup mixed with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and maraschino cherries. Shouldn't a milkshake be vegetarian anyway?

At more than 1,000 calories for a large shake, a low-activity person could only take in an extra 500-700 calories that day to maintain a weight that wouldn't increase their odds of becoming overweight or obese.

Let's check out the nutritional value: 184mg of cholesterol, 461mg of sodium, and 108 grams of sugar. (Here's the truth about sugar, and this shake happens to have mounds of it.)

An E. coli-tainted ground beef outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants left four children dead. Still want that shake?

Dairy bombs like this one also rank right up there with meat consumption with producing greenhouse gas emissions. Let alone, low-dairy and no-dairy diets are showing to improve health. Dairy has been linked to high cholesterol and some studies suggest an increased risk of some cancers from eating three or more servings a day of dairy, especially prostate cancer in men.

Beyond Bacon Shakes
I know, I couldn't have ended my bacon shake rant on more of a Debby downer note, so I leave you with this glass half creamy and full. Shakes can be healthy and delicious. If in a jam at Jack in the Box, you're better off with their regular-sized Strawberry Banana Smoothie. The calories clock in at just under 300 and the sugar is a fraction of the meat lover's edition. Better yet, make your own shake or smoothie to sate your sweet tooth, naturally.

Syn7

01-02-2013, 03:29 PM

Why do vegetarians insist on fake meat? I focused more on changing my whole outlook. Not only to remove meat, but to remove all processed foods. I cook from scratch. No weak wannabe burgers or fake ass deli slices in this house.

If you like bacon, eat ****ing bacon!!! If the health effects of bacon bother you, don't. Only spoiled brats could come up with fake meat. A buncha have my cake and eat it too people. So you want to be healthy, and your response is to make processed soy products? WTF???

GeneChing

01-02-2013, 04:03 PM

Why do vegetarians insist on fake meat? I don't think the 'creative' chefs at Jack in the Box are vegetarian. I don't think they conceived of this product to market it to vegetarians either. It's more of a comment on fast food than it is vegetarianism.

GeneChing

01-29-2013, 12:22 PM

You’re a man. Time to start smelling like one. (http://www.gadgetsandgear.com/man-hands-man-soap.html)

Aren’t you sick of being forced to use all those girly scented soaps? I mean come on, you’re a man. You shouldn’t be smelling like citrus or lavender or apricot. Leave the girly scents for the fairer sex. Guys should be using Man Soap.
Been Told You're Not Man Enough? With Man Soap you can smell the way you need to smell.

While we do disagree with men using women soap, we do have to admit that having a bunch of different scents is a good idea. Every guy is unique and should smell the way he wants to smell. That’s the whole point of Man Soap. Smell the way you want to smell.

Man Soap comes in 19 manly scents!

To give the man the ultimate variety, we now have 19 unique manly scents. Here’s a helpful guide to selecting the scent which best defines you.

Bacon
By far the manliest of meats, Bacon Soap is the only soap meat lovers need to smell like clean sweet swine all day.

Baseball Glove
There's nothing quite like that rich smell of a leather baseball glove. The game is on everywhere you go.

Beer
There is perhaps no manlier smell than the scent of a cold pint of beer. Why wait until the drunk guy dumps it over you in the packed bar?

Bonfire
Only real men can build a bonfire, and only the manliest can smell like one.

Brewed Coffee
Don't worry you won't smell like a Frappuccino with whipped cream, we're talking a manly blend of black coffee.

Buttered Popcorn
Guys and girls may both like popcorn, but guys aren't afraid to pour on the extra butter. Awwwww yeahhhh.

Cannabis
If anyone sees you bathing with this just tell them you have a prescription.

Cash
There is no smell a young female will be more attracted to, trust us.

Cedar Log Cabin
Relax to the smell of a cozy log cabin from the comfort of your apartment full of smelly sweat socks and rotting food under your bed.

Democrat
A blend that focused on individuals with a free-spirit, love for mankind, who have a desire to promote conservation of our environment.

Fresh Cut Grass
Nothing screams man like mowing the lawn, so this smell will remind you of the smell of a job well done.

Margarita
That delicious blend of tequila, Cointreau and lemon or lime may not be the manliest drink, but it sure is tasty.

Muscle Rub
When a real man gets hurt he doesn't rest, he just puts on some muscle rub and goes right back to work. And unlike real muscle rub, this soap won't make you cry if it touches your junk.

Nag Champa Incense
Your favorite Indian fragrance now in soap form! Let Bollywood baby.

Obsession Cologne
A refreshing, oriental, woody fragrance that men will obsess over.

Red Wine
It'll smell like grapes just fermented all over your body.

Republican
A blend that stands for conservative values, love of country, and a strong family unit.

Top Soil
Nothing says manly like dirt, so now's your chance to smell like you're covered in it without all the worms and gravel.

Urinal Mint
The urinal mint is unique in that usually only men are around them staring down, wishing that smell could be all theirs. But its usually covered in pee. So if you want to smell manly, clean your hands with a soap that smells like a freshly un-pee'd on urinal cake.That last one is just wrong. :eek:

Syn7

01-29-2013, 12:59 PM

I don't think the 'creative' chefs at Jack in the Box are vegetarian. I don't think they conceived of this product to market it to vegetarians either. It's more of a comment on fast food than it is vegetarianism.

Yeah but if you go to the "vegetarian" section in a supermarket, you see burgers, hot dogs and deli slices. Kinda weird, don't you think?

Mango rice pudding is pretty good tho :D

Syn7

03-26-2013, 02:49 PM

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-SPvaUbZPmNE/UVGXzoBZ3LI/AAAAAAAATeI/6NYPepwJdzg/w497-h373/photo.jpg

GeneChing

05-07-2013, 02:22 PM

...off another forum members facebook. Shhh. We'll see if he notices. ;)

Posted: May 7, 2013
105-Year-Old Woman Says Bacon Is Key To Longevity (http://www.inquisitr.com/652146/105-year-old-woman-says-bacon-is-key-to-longevity/)

Richland Springs, TX – Pearl Cantrell is 105 years young, and her secret to her long life might surprise you: bacon.

Cantrell said, “I love bacon, I eat it everyday. I don’t feel as old as I am, that’s all I can say.”

The central Texas resident celebrated her most recent birthday over three days with more than 200 guests. And when Oscar Mayer found out how much Cantrell loves bacon, the company sent one of its Wienermobiles to her home.

“We’ve seen a lot of stories on the road, but nothing quite like this one. So we’re excited to be here,” said Abraham Luna, a “hotdogger” for Oscar Mayer. “We know she’s an inspiration. Pearl is an inspiration for the community and her friends and family.”

Not only did Cantrell get to ride in the Wienermobile, but Oscar Mayer gave her more bacon, and local news station KRBC said the company is planning to send her even more bacon in the future.

If Cantrell’s secret sounds too good to be true, you might be even more surprised to learn that there is research that supports her claim about the health benefits of bacon. In March, a study conducted by the University of Zurich found that eating little to no red meat can be a risk factor for early death.

According to The Atlantic, the reason little or no red meat can lead to early death is because red meat contains important vitamins and nutrients. The researchers also found that if people limited their daily meat consumption to less than 20 grams, 3 percent of premature deaths could be prevented in a given year.

Of course, on the flip side, too much red meat “was associated with significantly increased mortality only before they controlled for lifestyle factors.” So the key here is moderation.

There is also scientific proof that red meat makes you happy, although the researchers who conducted that study weren’t able to explain the why behind it.

What do you think of Pearl Cantrell’s secret to her long life? Does it make you want to eat more bacon?

GeneChing

05-17-2013, 05:41 PM

Well, maybe not. :( Although I imagine it's not hard to make ganga bacon as bacon is a fat and marijuana is fat soluble...at least so I'm told...

Butcher Feeds Marijuana To Pigs To Create True High-Quality Meat (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/marijuana-fed-pigs_n_3280433.html?ir=Weird+News)
Posted: 05/15/2013 1:57 pm EDT | Updated: 05/16/2013 5:09 pm EDT
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1139663/thumbs/r-MARIJUANA-FED-PIGS-large570.jpg?6
This is what they meant by pot-bellied pig!

We're getting high on the hog of BB Ranch butcher William von Schneidau, who feeds marijuana to his pigs and sells them at Seattle's Pike Place Market. SeattleMet reports that Schneidau adds "weed to the feed" -- yes, the stems, stalks and seeds -- to give his meat a more savory flavor.

The "pot pigs" are partly a celebration of Washington voters passing a pot-legalization initiative late last year, MSN reports. But they're also a real culinary experiment. Schneidau says the pot plants add fiber to the pigs' diets, which makes the meat taste delicious, man.

No, you won't get high from the meat. But the pigs get high from the weed, SeattleMet reports:

Apparently, not all mammals can process THC, but most have cannabinoid receptors. Cannabinoids are the other chemicals in marijuana, often linked to the medicinal properties, which help with pain and discomfort. Pigs have these receptors, and the four that ate this enhanced feed gained more weight and likely felt way more mellow than their non-ganja feeding friends.

If you're disappointed that ganja pigs won't produce ganja bacon, do it the Schneidau way. Halfway through a recent tasting, one of his guests rounded up 75 percent of the room and "got baked."

GeneChing

06-12-2013, 02:24 PM

So this is a trend now? Even as a vegetarian, I can't but approve. It's much more interesting than the broccoli bras (http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4970678359951841&pid=1.7) we were trying to push.

http://epicdemotivational.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/demotivational-posters-bacon-bra.jpg
http://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/picture/Shanebrown18/BaconBra.png
http://bacontoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/BACON-BRA-pic-1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bWzwT.jpg
http://media.heavy.com/gallery/20-awesomest-photos-of-women-bacon/bacon-bikini-bra.jpg
http://raffi.geoffreyfong.com/richie/Bacon-bra-1.jpg
http://www.evilmilk.com/pictures/The_Bacon_Bra.jpg

Syn7

06-12-2013, 02:32 PM

I like titties and I like bacon, but that **** is just weird.

Kymus

06-12-2013, 02:45 PM

I like the direction you're taking this thread..

http://www.s2ki.com/s2000/uploads/gallery/1277736268/gallery_99130_34859_17327142394c2eef175323c.jpg

http://m.brobible.com/files/uploads/images/20_1.jpg

http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Bacon_a8f449_439768.jpg

GeneChing

08-15-2013, 04:28 PM

Kevin Bacon (24x36") (http://www.jasonmecier.com/fkevinbacon.html?app_data={%22pi%22%3A%22520d28c73 c99bc7b66000002%22%2C%22pt%22%3A%22wall%22})
http://www.jasonmecier.com/media/art/fkevinbacon.jpg
http://www.jasonmecier.com/media/art/fkbacondetail2.jpg
http://www.jasonmecier.com/media/art/fkbacondetail1.jpg

GeneChing

01-16-2015, 10:39 AM

This is where China will never be as free as America. Just imagine the outrage if the U.S. Government tried to shut down bacon-making in America.

Official blames smoked bacon for smog (http://www.ecns.cn/2015/01-15/150905.shtml)
2015-01-15 16:36 Xinhua Web Editor: Gu Liping

While experts point to car emissions and city construction for causing foul air, a government official in a southwest China city has laid the blame on people making smoked bacon.

The city of Dazhou in Sichuan Province has endured heavy smog since the new year began, with the PM 2.5 reading frequently exceeding healthy levels.

Rao Bing, deputy head of Dazhou Environment Protection Bureau, said on January 4 that one of the causes of the city's lingering smog is smoking bacon, a traditional method of preserving pork by local residents.

Eating preserved pork and sausages is a long-held tradition in Sichuan, and almost every household makes smoked bacon before the Chinese lunar new year, which falls on Feb. 19 this year.

Local chengguan, or public civil servants, have started to raid and forcibly demolish meat-smoking sites.

The claim invited public ridicule and skepticism after Rao's statement found its way online on Wednesday.

On Sina Weibo, netizens mocked the official's argument by saying that Dazhou's air might "smell like smoked bacon."

"Smoking bacon has a long history, but smog does not," said one comment.

Smoking meat does contribute to air pollution, but only to a small degree, according to volunteers at Bayu Public Welfare Development Center, a non-government environmental protection organization, which conducted a three-day survey at a dozen bacon-smoking sites.

"The impact of the smoking process is confined within a 50-meter radius," a volunteer told the Chongqing Evening News.

It is not the first time that Chinese government officials have suggested controversial explanations for smog. In October, environmental watchdogs in Beijing and the adjacent Henan Province, two severely polluted places, blamed the smog on farmers burning straw, an agricultural practice with a long history.

In recent years, swathes of the country have frequently reported heavy smog, slashing visibility and posing health hazards. China has taken a variety of measures to contain severe air pollution, including restricting industrial production and vehicle use.

GeneChing

02-05-2015, 01:20 PM

Be at ease now. It's all better.

Smoked bacon was never the cause of Sichuan city's pollution, of course (http://shanghaiist.com/2015/02/05/sichuan_city_official_admits_smoked.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/katienelson/baaacon.jpg

Bacon was not to blame for the hazardous air pollution in Dazhou, Sichuan province, reports now say, confirming what proponents of smoked meats have known all along.

An air of gloom settled over the already smog-ridden city last month when Rao Bing, the deputy head of the Dazhou Environment Protection Bureau, pointed to smoked bacon as the cause of the city's insufferable haze and promptly ordered closures.

Following a long-held tradition, nearly every household in Dazhou makes smoked bacon ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. This year, however, it was not to be. Chengguan, unrepentant in their cruelty, smashed down bacon-smoking sites and tore families from tradition...and it was all done in vain. IN VAIN!

Air quality index (AQI) levels showed no improvement following the citywide smoked bacon shutdown, according to Shanghai Daily. Now, one sensible pollution prevention official (and possibly that godforsaken city's only hope) has broken his silence on the matter to point out that it was probably the local industrial giant Dazhou Steel Group causing the pollution.

The unnamed official was quoted as saying that the bad air quality was more probably a result of industrial pollution, and that as the city’s biggest energy consumer the steel corporation was the prime suspect.

Officials were prompted to tackle the air pollution situation when they noticed that the AQI appeared static above 200. On several days it surpassed 470.

The attack on bacon smokers caused much controversy in the city, as the industry dates back hundreds of years and locals consider sizzling rashers a culinary staple.

Observers have confirmed that smoking meat does contribute to pollution, but only to the smallest degree. Dazhou Steel, meanwhile, produces around 3.5 million tons of pig iron every year.

GeneChing

02-24-2015, 10:00 AM

22-year old sets bacon-eating record: 182 pieces in 5 minutes (http://mashable.com/2015/02/23/bacon-eating-world-champion/)

http://rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE1LzAyLzI0LzIzL21hdHRzdG9uaWUuN2NkNWQuanBnCn AJdGh1bWIJOTUweDUzNCMKZQlqcGc/8b0f9223/9a8/mattstonie.jpg
Image: Gerardo Mora/Smithfield

By Brian Koerber 15 hours ago

You may love bacon, but the thought of eating six pounds of the pork product is enough to make anyone sick.

Anyone except competitive eater Matt "Megatoad" Stonie, who has snagged another award — this time for eating 182 slices of bacon (approximately 6 lbs) in five minutes at the Daytona 500 in Florida on Sunday, Huffington Post reports. The event was sponsored by Smithfield bacon.

According to CompetitveEaters.com, the previous unofficial record was set by Mark "The Human Vacuum" Lyle, who ate just 54 pieces in five minutes.

The competition Stonie won was set up by Major League Eaters, and was their first venture into bacon-eating. MLE currently ranks Stonie second in the world of competitive eating.

http://zippy.gfycat.com/SecondaryHauntingAmericanshorthair.webm

Stonie takes an interesting approach to eating bacon, grabbing a handful, bending it in half, chomping away and following it with a glass of water. According to his Facebook page, he is very picky about how he likes his bacon prepared.

After taking the title, the 22-year-old told Huffington Post that "the bacon was cooked just the way I like it — a little crispy because I don't like having to chew it." He added: "It can't be too crispy and if it's not warm when I get it, the fat coagulates into lard."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugofUrunz98
Stonie is a San Jose local. I heard him on Live 105 during my commute today. San Jose couldn't be more proud.

GeneChing

10-26-2015, 12:16 PM

Bacon is the hardest one to give up.

Bacon, hot dogs and processed meats cause cancer, WHO says (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/red-meat-bacon-hot-dogs-processed-meats-cause-cancer-dangerous-smoking/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=pbsofficial&utm_campaign=newshour)
BY Nsikan Akpan October 26, 2015 at 8:51 AM EDT | Updated: Oct 26, 2015 at 10:35 AM

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/GettyImages-545021445-1024x686.jpg
Barbecue with sausages and hamburger. Photo by JOKER/Erich Haefele/ullstein bild/via Getty Images

Bacon, sausage and other processed meats are now ranked alongside cigarettes and asbestos as known carcinogens, the World Health Organization announced today. Processed meats cause cancer, and red meat likely causes cancer, the health agency says in a new report.

The new investigation involved 22 scientists who were invited by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer to assess the association between more than 16 types of cancer and the consumption of red meat and processed meat.

Over the course of seven days in early October, the scientific panel examined more than 800 epidemiological studies from the U.S., Europe, Japan, Australia and elsewhere. The scope covered multiple ethnicities and global diets, according to the report which was published today in the journal Lancet Oncology.

The WHO group “classified consumption of processed meat as ‘carcinogenic to humans’ on the basis of sufficient evidence for colorectal cancer.” Colorectal cancer is the second most lethal form of cancer in the U.S., causing nearly 50,000 deaths per year. Processed meat was also linked to a higher incidence of stomach cancer.

Red meat carries a slightly lower risk, the group says, but is still “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Aside from the “strong mechanistic evidence” related to colorectal cancer, the “consumption of red meat was also positively associated with pancreatic and with prostate cancer.

As a main line of evidence, the group cites one study from 2011, which combed through 28 studies on meat consumption and cancer risk dating back to 1966. That meta analysis found that colorectal cancer risk jumps by 17 percent for every 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of red meat consumed each day. Meanwhile with processed meat, colorectal cancer risk increases by 18 percent for every 50 grams (1.7 ounces) eaten each day.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer keeps a list of compounds or activities with suspected, probable and definitive links to cancer, with each possible item falling into a designated grouping based on whether or not it causes cancer.

Processed meat now falls into “group 1,” meaning it ranks as high as tobacco smoking, the most dangerous variants of human papillomavirus (HPV) and asbestos exposure in terms of causing cancer. Red meat lands in “group 2A” with inorganic lead.

Research in rodents and human tissue shows meat consumption increases the production of chemical compounds, including haem iron and its chemical byproduct N-nitroso-compounds (NOCs). NOCs cause oxidative damage to intestinal tissue that is carcinogenic. Curing meats elevates the levels of NOCs as well as carcinogenic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Heating meat leads to the formation of heterocyclic aromatic amines, a known mutagen and cancer-causing agent.

“High-temperature cooking by pan-frying, grilling, or barbecuing generally produces the highest amounts of these chemicals,” the report states.

The new analysis makes a definitive assertion on the connection between eating meat and cancer. In recent years, studies and health policy groups have linked the two activities, but often without explicitly saying meat causes cancer. Take, for example, the American Cancer Society’s position as of this morning:

Because of a wealth of studies linking colon cancer to diets high in red meats (beef, lamb, or liver) and processed meats (hot dogs, bologna, etc.), the Society encourages people to eat more vegetables and fish and less red and processed meats.

As the Guardian reported, the WHO’s new position aligns the views with other health agencies like the World Cancer Research Fund, which has said there is convincing evidence that processed meats cause bowel cancer.

Though a majority of the WHO’s panel agreed to these assessments, the final decision was not unanimous.

The beef industry has been preparing a rebuttal for months to meet the WHO’s announcement, according to The Washington Post:

“We simply don’t think the evidence support any causal link between any red meat and any type of cancer,” Shalene McNeill, executive director of human nutrition at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, told The Washington Post.

ShaolinDan

10-28-2015, 06:06 AM

Not really anything we didn't know. Everything in moderation. Oxygen is toxic. Going to be a hard economic blow though.

GeneChing

08-22-2016, 01:27 PM

No Kung Fu...Pork!

Is this the oldest woman in the world? Great-great grandmother from China celebrates 119th birthday (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-3752922/Chinese-woman-celebrates-119th-birthday.html)

Fu Suqing, from China's Taiping town, turned 119 on August 21
The long-living woman was born in 1897, as her ID card shows
Fu's family members said her secret to longevity is to eat pork
In Guinness World Records, the world's oldest living woman is 116

By TRACY YOU FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 09:44 EST, 22 August 2016 | UPDATED: 09:58 EST, 22 August 2016

A great-great-grandmother from China celebrated her 119th birthday yesterday.

According to her identification card, the elderly woman, named Fu Suqing, was born in 1897 - the same year the UK's Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee.

Although Chinese media claim Fu to be the oldest living female in the world, an Argentinean pensioner named Celina del Carmen Olea reportedly turned 119 on February 15 this year, making her six months older than Fu.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/22/14/377C7B7D00000578-3752922-image-m-12_1471871955135.jpg
Famous: Fu Suqing is seen during her birthday feast as she turned 119 years old yesterday

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/22/14/377C7B6400000578-3752922-image-a-15_1471871998526.jpg
A big birthday party! The pensioner celebrated the occassion with more than 200 guests

Fu Suqing was born on the 19th day of the seventh month on Chinese lunar calendar, as her identification card shows.

Her birthday fell on August 21 on the Gregorian calendar this year.

The pensioner celebrated the occasion with more than 200 guests at her home in the Taiping town of Chengdu city, south-west China, reported the People's Daily Online.

More than 20 large round tables were set up by Fu's family to accommodate large groups of guests.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/22/14/377C7B7800000578-3752922-image-a-16_1471872006570.jpg
Party food: A traditional local feast, called 'Nine Large Bowls', were prepared for each table

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/22/14/377C7B7400000578-3752922-image-a-22_1471872081385.jpg
Happy Birthday! The long-living woman, from China, has six children and 68 offsprings

One of Fu's great-granddaughters, Leng Ting, told a local reporter: 'Most of the guests are family members and friends. They occupy more than 10 tables.'

A traditional local feast, called 'Nine Large Bowls', were prepared for each table. The feast included nine steamed meat dishes, such as pork ribs, beef and turtles.

Fu's family members revealed that the secret to her longevity is to eat meat, especially a local dish called twice-cooked pork, which is Fu's favourite.

The birthday star, who wore a navy blue coat, attended the feast accompanied by her second eldest daughter, 83-year-old Xu Shuhua.

Fu reportedly ate a small chuck of carrot and two pieces of ham on her birthday feast.

The long-living woman has six children and 68 offsprings. Her oldest great-great grandchild is 23 years old.

Fu's great-granddaughter, Leng, said they almost lost count of how many children Fu has now.

Leng said Fu has got five new great-grandchildren in the past two years, the youngest of whom, a boy, had been born four days before Fu's birthday.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/22/14/377C7B6C00000578-3752922-image-a-18_1471872022084.jpg
Now that's old! According to Fu's ID card, she was born in 1897 during China's Qing Dynasty

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What a big family! Fu was pictured holding one of her great-great-grandchildren in 2015

Fu's daily life is taken care of by her second eldest daughter, Xu Shuhua.

Xu said her mother enjoyed eating twice-cooked pork and used to eat it in every meal.

But in the recent six months, her mother's appetite decreased, which worries her.

She said: '[My mother] has stopped eating meat and the portion of her meals becomes really small. Sometimes, she only drinks soup.'

Xu also said her mother eats mostly mushy pea and steamed pumpkins nowadays and sleeps most of the day every day.

However, she has not been able to find out what causes these sudden changes.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/22/14/377D15EE00000578-3752922-image-a-32_1471872533166.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/22/14/377D15BF00000578-3752922-image-m-31_1471872526663.jpg
Although Chinese media claim Fu to be the oldest living female in the world, an Argentinean pensioner named Celina del Carmen Olea (pictured) reportedly also turned 119 this year

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/22/14/377D15D700000578-3752922-image-a-33_1471872547303.jpg
Celina Del Carmen Olea (pictured with her family), from Buenos Aires, claims she was born on February 15, making her six months older than Fu

According to Guinness World Records, the world’s oldest living person is a 116-year-old woman named Emma Martina Luigia Morano.

She was born on 29 November 1899 and lives in Vercelli, Italy.

Ms Morano has followed the same diet for around 90 years, said Guinness World Records.

She eats three eggs per day - two raw and one cooked - along with fresh Italian pasta and a dish of raw meat.

Jakki Lewis, a spokesman from Guinness World Records, told MailOnline: 'We have many applications from people who claim to be the oldest male or female – this category is split into gender.

'However, we ask for a great deal of paperwork and proof to substantiate claims and to satisfy our official guidelines.'

The spokesman added: 'We also have a number of expert gerontologists and consultants investigating for us to ensure our facts are correct.'

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/22/15/377DD19800000578-3752922-image-m-39_1471875901865.jpg
The world’s oldest living woman is 116-year-old Emma Martina Luigia Morano (pictured) from Italy, according to Guinness World Records

Robert Young, a senior consultant for gerontology at Guinness World Records, said in order to validate a person's longevity claim, a set of paperwork is required.

They include the original proof of birth, a recent identification card with the date of birth and photo as well as mid-life documents such as a marriage record.

Mr Young added: 'For a claim to the age of 119, we would like a family tree that helps to show how the person fits in.

'Additionally, we would need information on parents, siblings, and children, as well as places of birth, residence and death.'

GeneChing

10-28-2016, 08:56 AM

Pork Addiction Sends China Searching for Hedge of Hog Risk (http://www.agweb.com/article/pork-addiction-sends-china-searching-for-hedge-of-hog-risk-blmg/)
OCTOBER 27, 2016 08:55 AM

http://www.agweb.com/assets/1/6/market_hogs_(25).JPG?1093929
Farmers can’t keep up and rising costs can boost inflation.

By Bloomberg

China is looking to hedge the cost of its pork addiction.

In a country that consumes half the world’s pork, price swings have become so large that they hurt the ability of domestic producers to keep up with demand, even with a herd of 450 million pigs. Imports are the highest ever and exceed all other buyers.

The Dalian Commodity Exchange, China’s largest marketplace for everything from corn and eggs to iron ore, says it may have a way to help minimize that risk: a hog futures contract. Dalian is planning to offer trading in hogs for the first time next year, according to two people who’ve been briefed about its plans. The contract could help farmers, meat buyers and investors better plan for price moves as well as encourage consolidation in the industry.

http://www.agweb.com/assets/1/6/MainFCKEditorDimension/Chart14.png

Hogs “could become the largest agriculture futures contract” in the country, said Jim Huang, chief executive officer at China-America Commodities Data Analytics Inc. Based on the 2 trillion yuan ($295 billion) of the animals bought and sold annually in China, a popular contract on Dalian could generate trading valued at 10 times that amount, Huang said.

A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell a commodity at a specific price and date. Speculators use the market to bet on price changes, but the agreements also are used to reduce financial risk by locking in sales for producers and costs for consumers.

While there’s no guarantee a new contract will be successful, the Dalian Commodity Exchange has become a benchmark for the expanding raw-material and agricultural markets in China, the world’s second-largest economy. Trading on the exchange has ballooned to 1.12 billion contracts last year from 240.7 million in 2006. The biggest markets are soybean meal and iron ore.

Wang Fenghai, the Dalian Commodity Exchange’s CEO, told a conference in September that after 15 years of studying the market, the bourse would start trading in hog futures in the near future. He declined to provide details. A spokesman at the Dalian exchange declined to comment on its plans.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, owned by CME Group Inc., has the world’s most-used hog futures, trading a record 37,000 contracts a day in the first quarter. Each contract is for 40,000 pounds (18 tons) of hog carcasses, valued at about $17,680. However, the CME serves as more of a U.S. benchmark with little influence on supplies in China, the world’s most-populous nation at more than 1.37 billion people.

The lack of a domestic futures contract has hurt the Chinese pork industry as well as consumers, Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said at a conference in Zhengzhou, Henan province, in September.

More Meat

Pork accounts for 60 percent of the meat consumed in China, and domestic producers can’t keep up. The country probably will import a record 2.4 million metric tons this year, triple the 761,000 tons of 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Foreign supplies will account for 4.4 percent of what the country consumes in 2016, up from 1.3 percent in 2014, the data show.

Hog futures in China still face hurdles. The exchange hasn’t disclosed any details about what the contract will entail, including what kind of hogs will be acceptable for delivery. Providing reliable quality standards will also be necessary, said Feng Yonghui, Beijing-based chief analyst with industry consulting firm Soozhu.com.

The meat industry has faced a series of food-safety violations including rat, fox and mink meat sold as mutton and a meat supplier selling expired chicken and beef. Thousands of pig carcasses were found in the Huangpu River, a major source of drinking water for Shanghai.

Pork Index

With China’s per-capita pork consumption twice the global average, the meat has an out-sized impact on inflation. Swings in the cost of domestic supply got so wide over the past decade that some economists joked the country’s consumer price index should be renamed the China pork index. Record prices for the meat in 2008 and 2011 sent the overall inflation rate surging, government data show. Wholesale pork touched an all-time high in June.

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“Pork’s consumption is the biggest among meats in the country, but we still don’t have pork futures,” Fang, the CSRC official, said in September. “The absence of hogs contracts gave rise to hog cycles and brought huge risks to the country’s pork producers.”

Providing a viable hedging tool will help, according to Huang of China-America Commodities Data Analytics. After the CME began its contract in 1966, the U.S. industry eventually saw consolidation that left a few big companies controlling supply, he said. In China, the market is dominated by smaller enterprises, with big producers, including Guangdong Wens Foodstuffs Group Co., accounting for about 5 percent, he said.

“Standardized production by big enterprises can mean more control over the price,” said Hou Wuqun, vice president at pork producer Chuying Agro-Pastoral Group Co. “That would help decrease the swings.”

If memory serves, Chinese do pork really well. Pork lap chong....mmmmmm.

GeneChing

05-07-2018, 12:01 PM

That name just sounds like a thinly-disguised term for human meat in some sci-fi like Soylent Green.

This vegetarian company wants to disrupt China's pork industry (http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/23/smallbusiness/meatless-pork-china/index.html)
by Sherisse Pham @Sherisse
April 24, 2018: 1:41 AM ET

David Yeung wants to take a bite out of China's massive meat market.

When the founder of Green Common, a vegetarian grocery store and casual dining chain in Hong Kong, started bringing plant-based burgers and other meatless products to Asia, he saw an opportunity.

"One of the most consumed meats in the world is actually overlooked -- that is pork," Yeung told CNNMoney.

Yeung on Monday launched a new product called omnipork which he hopes will change people's diets in mainland China, the world's largest consumer of pork. Omnipork is made from soy, pea, mushroom and rice proteins, but it tries to mimic the taste and feel of real pork.

Yeung's company -- Right Treat -- is currently seeking approval from Chinese regulators and expects to start selling omnipork in mainland China before the end of the year.

In China, pork is a beloved meat: the Chinese character for family is a pig under a roof. Until recently, the country's growing ranks of middle class consumers had fueled a massive rise in pork consumption.

People in China will eat about 56 million tons of pork this year, more than any other country, according to US Department of Agriculture estimates.

But demand may be peaking. Last year, overall pork consumption in China hit a three-year low of 54.8 million tons.

The dip came after the Chinese government issued dietary guidelines in 2016, outlining a plan to cut meat consumption in half. An official campaign included commercials featuring actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneggar encouraging Chinese people to eat less meat to help the planet.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/180423181223-meatless-omnipork-hong-kong-start-up-china-780x439.jpg
Omnipork is made from mushroom, pea, soy and rice proteins, but it tries to mimic the taste and feel of real pork.

Yeung hopes to tap into China's changing diets, but it's still a lofty goal to convince people who grew up chowing down on pork dumplings and sweet-and-sour pork to choose meatless alternatives.

He compares his ambitions to what Starbucks has achieved in China.

"China has never been a coffee drinking country. For the last 5,000 years, Chinese people drink tea," he said. "But what Starbucks has done is they create a lifestyle, and it is aspirational, it's about much more than what is inside the cup, it is everything around it."

Yeung is joining other startups that are looking to shake up the global meat industry. They include Beyond Meat, which is bankrolled by actor Leonardo di Caprio, Microsoft (MSFT) founder Bill Gates and agricultural giant Tyson Foods.

Yeung is also an investor in Beyond Meat and brought its meatless burger and other products to Hong Kong. He said his company saw sales of Beyond Meat grow fourfold in one year, and there are plans to take it to mainland China by the end of the year.

Impossible Foods, a startup behind a meatless burger that bleeds, launched in Hong Kong last week, its first international market.

But Yeung says those startups' products generally appeal to Western palates. He made omnipork specifically for Asian dishes, enlisting a Michelin star chef -- Li Yuet Faat at Ming Court -- to tackle a few Chinese staples.

At first, Li said he wasn't sure what to do with omnipork. Eventually, he decided to try using it for xiaolong bao, steamed soup dumplings typically stuffed with pork. It took the chef and his team several tries before they finally made a version with omnipork that they were ready to serve.

This CNNMoney reporter and three colleagues did a blind test of omnipork soup dumplings alongside regular ones -- and everyone could taste the difference. But everyone also agreed that the omnipork soup dumplings were still tasty. Li will also roll out a sweet-and-sour pork dish using omnipork in June.

"You can use this ingredient many ways, steam it, cook it, fry it, pan fry it, stuff it in dumplings, meatballs," Yeung said. "This is something that we want to be really all purpose."

CNNMoney (Hong Kong)
First published April 23, 2018: 9:14 AM ET

THREADS: Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
Vegetarian (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?19996-Vegetarian)

GeneChing

05-14-2018, 02:40 PM

Bacon!!!!!! is a better sell though.

MAY 10, 2018 / 4:07 PM / 3 DAYS AGO
China's multi-story hog hotels elevate industrial farms to new levels (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-pigs-hotels-insight-idUSKBN1IB362?utm_source=34553&utm_medium=partner)
Dominique Patton
7 MIN READ

YAJI MOUNTAIN, China (Reuters) - On Yaji Mountain in southern China, they are checking in the sows a thousand head per floor in high-rise “hog hotels”.

Privately owned agricultural company Guangxi Yangxiang Co Ltd is running two seven-floor sow breeding operations, and is putting up four more, including one with as many as 13 floors that will be the world’s tallest building of its kind.

Hog farms of two or three floors have been tried in Europe. Some are still operating, others have been abandoned, but few new ones have been built in recent years, because of management difficulties and public resistance to large, intensive farms.

Now, as China pushes ahead with industrialization of the world’s largest hog herd, part of a 30-year effort to modernize its farm sector and create wealth in rural areas, companies are experimenting with high-rise housing for pigs despite the costs. The “hotels” show how far some breeders are willing to go as China overhauls its farming model.

“There are big advantages to a high-rise building,” said Xu Jiajing, manager of Yangxiang’s mountain-top farm.

“It saves energy and resources. The land area is not that much but you can raise a lot of pigs.”

Companies like Yangxiang are pumping more money into the buildings - about 30 percent more than on single-story modern farms - even as hog prices in China hold at an eight-year low.

For some, the investments are too risky. Besides low prices that have smaller operations culling sows or re-thinking expansion plans, there is worry about diseases spreading through such intensive operations.

But success for high-rise pig farms in China could have implications across densely populated, land-scarce Asia, as well as for equipment suppliers.

“We see an increasing demand for two- or three-level buildings,” said Peter van Issum, managing director of Microfan, a Dutch supplier that designed Yangxiang’s ventilation system.

Microfan also supplied a three-storey breeding operation, Daedeok JongDon GGP Farm, in South Korea.

“The higher ones are still an exception, but the future might change rapidly,” van Issum said.

HIGH-RISE HOGS

Yaji Mountain seems an unlikely location for a huge breeding farm. Up a narrow road, away from villages, massive concrete pig buildings overlook a valley of dense forest that Yangxiang plans to develop as a tourist attraction.

The site, however, is relatively close to Guigang, a city with a river port and waterway connections to the Pearl River Delta, one of the world’s most densely populated regions.

While Beijing is encouraging more livestock production in China’s grain basket in the northeast, many worry that farms there will struggle to get fresh pork safely to big cities thousands of miles away.

That has helped push some farm investments to southern provinces like Guangxi and Fujian, where land is hilly but much closer to many of China’s biggest cities.

Yangxiang will house 30,000 sows on its 11-hectare site by year-end, producing as many as 840,000 piglets annually. That will likely make it the biggest, most-intensive breeding farm globally. A more typical large breeding farm in northern China would have 8,000 sows on around 13 hectares.

In Fujian province, Shenzhen Jinxinnong Technology Co Ltd also plans to invest 150 million yuan ($24 million) in two five-story sow farms in Nanping. Two other companies are building high-rise hog farms in Fujian as well, according to an equipment firm involved in the projects.

Thai livestock-to-retail conglomerate CP Foods is also building four six-story pig units with local firm Zhejiang Huatong Meat Products Co in Yiwu, a Chinese city near the large populations around Shanghai.

HIGH-TECH COMPLEXITY

Yangxiang spent 16,000 yuan per sow on its new farm, about 500 million yuan total, not including the cost of the pigs.

Building upwards means higher costs and greater complexity, such as for piping feed into buildings, said Xue Shiwei, vice chief operations officer at Pipestone Livestock Technology Consultancy, a Chinese unit of a U.S. farm management company.

“It would save on land but increase the complexity of the structure, and costs for concrete or steel would be higher,” he said.

Health concerns also raise costs, because the risk of rampant disease - an ever-present problem in China’s livestock sector - is higher with more animals under one roof.

http://s2.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20180511&t=2&i=1260890517&r=LYNXMPEE491VE&w=1200
A worker waits for an elevator to transport young pigs out of Guangxi Yangxiang's high-rise pig farm, at Yaji Mountain Forest Park in Guangxi province, China, March 21, 2018. Picture taken March 21, 2018. REUTERS/Dominique Patton

Even two-story farms in Europe have sparked worries that pigs will receive less care, said Irene Camerlink, an animal welfare expert at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna who has worked with Chinese farms.

Any outbreak of disease could lead to extensive culling, she said.

Farm manager Xu said Yangxiang reduces the risk of disease by managing each floor separately, with staff working on the same floor every day. New sows are introduced to a building on the top floor, and are then moved by elevator to an assigned level, where they remain.

The ventilation system is designed to prevent air from circulating between floors or to other buildings. Air enters through ground channels and passes through ventilation ducts on each level. The ducts are connected to a central exhaust on the roof, with powerful extraction fans pulling the air through filters and pushing it out of 15-meter high chimneys.

A waste treatment plant is still under construction on Yaji Mountain to handle the site’s manure. After treatment, the liquid will be sprayed on the surrounding forest, and solids sold to nearby farms as organic fertilizer.

The project’s additional equipment - much of it imported - to reduce disease, environmental impact and labor costs, significantly increased Yangxiang’s spending, the company said.

But after testing other models, Yangxiang concluded the multi-story building was best. Others are less convinced.

“We need time to see if this model is do-able,” said Xue of the farm management firm, adding that he would not encourage clients to opt for “hog hotels”.

“There will be many new, competing ideas (about how to raise pigs in China),” Xue said, including high-rise farms.

Eventually, “a suitable model will emerge.”

Reporting by Dominique Patton; Editing by Tom Hogue

Imagine the smell...

GeneChing

07-05-2018, 10:49 AM

...but can't afford the tariffs. :(

'We are the casualty:' US pig farmers brace for second round of pork tariffs from China, Mexico (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/04/us-pork-producers-brace-for-new-pork-tariffs-from-china-mexico.html)

U.S. pork producers are about to be hit by a second batch of hefty retaliatory tariffs from China and Mexico that has some large producers predicting they will lose big money.

China is scheduled Friday to start collecting an additional 25 percent tariff on imported U.S. pork, which when added with the previous import taxes will mean a tax exceeding 70 percent.

Industry analysts say China's high import tax essentially slams the door shut on U.S. pork imports into China, which also will start collecting 25 percent tariffs for soybeans Friday.

Jeff Daniels | @jeffdanielsca
Published 12:24 PM ET Wed, 4 July 2018 Updated 1 Hour Ago
CNBC.com

U.S. pork producers are about to be bitten by a second batch of hefty retaliatory tariffs from China and Mexico — and that has some large producers predicting they could lose big money and be forced to invest overseas.

Executives say the pork industry has been expanding in recent years, in part on the expectation of export opportunities that would continue to support growth. However, the threat of a trade war is adding uncertainty and driving fear. One in 4 hogs raised in the U.S. is sold overseas, and the Chinese are the world's top consumers of pork.

"We put a halt on all investment, not just because we will be losing money, but because we don't know if growing in the U.S. is the right move if we won't be an exporting country," said Ken Maschhoff, chairman of Maschhoff Family Foods and co-owner of the nation's largest family-owned pork producer.

Maschhoff said the farm industry has been "asked to be good patriots. We have been. But I don't want to be the patriot who dies at the end of the war. If we go out of business, it's tough to look at my kids and the 550 farm families that look us into the eye and our 1,400 employees."

Mexico imposed a 10 percent tariff on chilled and frozen pork muscle cuts effective June 5, and that import tax is set to double to 20 percent on Thursday. Mexico's retaliatory action followed the Trump administration's duties on imported aluminum and steel.

China, meantime, is scheduled to start collecting an additional 25 percent import duty Friday on American pork products as it targets $34 billion worth of U.S. goods in response to President Donald Trump's action against Beijing for alleged intellectual property theft.

China also is set to add tariffs this week on U.S. soybeans, corn, wheat, cotton, whiskey and dairy, as well as U.S. autos. Nearly $20 billion in U.S. agricultural exports went to China last year, with the more than half of that amount coming from soybeans.

"It's pretty apparent that these countries will go after, by and large, Trump supporters from a political base standpoint since items exported by red states are the ones being targeted," said Maschhoff, a past president of the National Pork Producers Council and a fifth-generation hog producer.

Whopping taxes and 'red ink'

In April, China slapped U.S. pork imports with a 25 percent duty, in retaliation for the Trump administration's steel tariffs. When combined with previous import levies, "the other white meat" will be subjected to import taxes that approach a whopping 71 percent cumulatively, according to Rabobank, a financial services firm for the agribusiness. And that's without including the 10 percent VAT, or value-added tax, that China charges for the import of agricultural products.

Industry analysts say China's high import tax essentially slams the door shut on U.S. pork imports into China, which will also begin collecting 25 percent tariffs for soybeans this Friday.

"At 81 percent net tariff, you're not moving any pork product into China," said Christine McCracken, executive director of animal protein at Rabobank.

"I would suspect by the end of the year, hog producers will be losing quite a bit of money. Part of it is just surplus pork on the market. We've been in an expansion mode."

Industry experts estimate that the Chinese tariffs alone represent around $18 per animal on an annualized basis, or more than $2 billion.

According to Maschhoff, the tariff will result in a hit of $100 million for his Illinois-based family farm operation, which markets about 5.5 million hogs a year and operates in 10 states.

"That's one farm company, and not the whole industry," said Maschhoff. "It's really tough and we had anticipated a decent 2018-19. This is only the second time we've had red ink 37 years in the business."

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Luke Sharrett | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Packages of Smithfield Foods Inc. bacon are displayed for sale inside a Kroger Co. grocery store in Louisville, Kentucky.

Even some big U.S.-based food companies such as Hormel Foods and Tyson Foods are exposed to the new tit-for-tat reality between the U.S. and Mexico. Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, the nation's largest pork producer, is owned by China's WH Group, and ships pork to more than 40 countries. The company declined comment to CNBC.

Hormel Foods warned in a 10-Q regulatory filing April 29 that "pork export margins could be challenged near-term due to tariffs on exports to China." But in a statement to CNBC, the company indicated that "only a very small portion of our pork is exported. We will be closely monitoring any impact on the broader protein markets."

Tyson has exposure to Mexico's and China's meat markets. "With the current volatility in trade relations, we’ve experienced day-to-day uncertainty in our ability to deliver products and services to customers," the company said. "With countries imposing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products, Tyson Foods as well as others in U.S. food and agriculture, will lose our competitive advantage in critical export markets like Mexico, Canada and China."

The impact on the new tariffs is amplified by the domestic pork industry's expansion in recent years and the record-high hog herd disclosed last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Also, the trade tussle with China comes as export volumes to China have been trending down from 2016 levels, when there was record need for imported pork.

"We might have been better able to weather the tariff rate increase (back in 2016) than we can now," said Joe Schuele, a spokesman for the U.S. Meat Export Federation, a trade association. "You've got a lot of suppliers — the European Union, Canada, Brazil, and the U.S. — competing for a tighter space."

He continued, "That makes it an even more difficult situation than if it had come about in 2016 when China had really a record need for imported pork."

China ranked as the second-largest volume market for U.S. hog producers last year, and in export value totaled about $1.1 billion, according to the federation. Mexico was the largest volume market last year, and in export value totaled $1.5 billion, slightly behind Japan.

continued next post

GeneChing

07-05-2018, 10:52 AM

'We are the casualty'

https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2018/07/05/105312581-1530804000049gettyimages-112907826.530x298.jpeg?v=1530804077
Chuck Berman | Tribune News Service | Getty Images
A farmer shows his Illini breed pigs, which will go to market in Polo, Illinois.

The Mexican and Chinese markets have been seen as especially important to the U.S. pork producers because they have purchased product that Americans typically don't buy, including raw hams and "variety meats" like tongue, ears, snout and heart.

However, it's no surprise that Mexico has been looking to other global suppliers for pork, such as Brazil, Chile and the European Union. The country has other agricultural product concerns amid the North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiation talks. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the president-elect of Mexico, has been advocating a reduction in dependence on U.S. farm imports.

"Mexico and China are about 40 percent of total exports, so those are critical markets and it's a significant concern with U.S. pork," said Jim Monroe, a spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, a trade group.

"The longer these trade disputes go on, and the cloud of uncertainty remains over the industry, it's going to have real negative financial consequences for U.S. pork producers," Monroe said. "It's a shame, because we support so many jobs, and when we can compete on a level playing field around the world we do extremely well."

In 2017, the average value of a hog was $147 — and of that amount almost $54 of the total value was driven by exports, according to Monroe. He said about 550,000 jobs are tied to the pork sector and 110,000 of them are directly tied to exports.

David Maloni, executive vice president of analytics for ArrowStream, a Chicago-based food service supply chain technology company, said he believes the tariffs are short term and "more tactical" in nature, useful in the broader context of forcing key countries to negotiate on trade.

"Our advice is don't get too wrapped up in politics, but see it as a major buying opportunity for commodities," he added.

Trump has previously offered to make it up to farmers, and USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue has spoken several times about Trump instructing him to craft a plan to help protect farmers and agricultural businesses.

However, producers like Maschhoff aren't looking for farm subsidies from the federal government. He told CNBC that the current programs are not for pork and beef producers, but focused mostly on dairy and grains.

"We want to compete and be able to sell abroad and make sure our government knocks down trade barriers," he said. "All we've accomplished is getting more trade barriers. We are the casualty and predicted it from day one."

China tariffs may have a profound effect on the martial arts supply industry (https://www.tigerclaw.com/home.php). The PRC produces the bulk of martial arts gear, not just for Chinese styles, but for Japanese too. So far, there hasn't been an issue, but there are so many products that might be affected if this trade war comes to pass.

PalmStriker

07-05-2018, 02:34 PM

I think this may end up being a "smoke & mirrors" campaign by the Trump administration as an exercise in shaking the tree to see what all may fall out of it's branches. Likely there will be time limits in place for imposed tariffs so things can return to business as usual after Mid-Term Elections and of course, Trump's re-election. Keeping his detractors off-balance while he is in office is what Trump seems comfortable with, even if he has to sacrifice a few honey-baked hams to achieve his agendas. :) Trump is a undisputed scoundrel by nature.

GeneChing

07-09-2018, 07:54 AM

Top pupils bring home the bacon as Chinese primary school hands out unusual academic prizes (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2154295/top-pupils-bring-home-bacon-chinese-primary-school-hands-out)
Principal uses money from donor to give 50 students 600g of pork for their outstanding performance at rural school where many are ‘left-behind children’

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 08 July, 2018, 3:43pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 08 July, 2018, 3:43pm
Kinling Lo
https://twitter.com/kinlinglo

Top pupils at a rural primary school in southern China went home not just with certificates last week but something more meaty to share with their families – a cut of pork.

Fifty children were given 1 catty (600g) of pork for their outstanding performance on the last day of school on Friday in the village of Dudongxiang, in Guangxi, Liuzhou Wenbao reported on Saturday.

The practical reward earned a tick of approval from internet users after photos of the beaming children with their certificates and pork dangling from red string were shared on social media platform Weibo.

https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/07/08/9d7ee2d4-8274-11e8-8c40-58d9485981d4_972x_154305.JPG
Photos of the beaming children with their certificates and pork were shared on social media. Photo: Thepaper.cn

The school principal, identified only by his surname Zhang, said a donor from Beijing, Yang Qian, had given the school in Sanjiang county 1,425 yuan (US$215) to spend on awards for academic excellence. So he decided to use it to buy the pork from local farmers who were struggling financially.

“In the past, we have given students cash prizes to recognise outstanding performance, and some pupils have used the money themselves and not told their parents about it,” Zhang told local news website Lzgd.com.

Zhang said he hoped that by sending the pupils home with something to feed the family, they would appreciate their children’s achievements more.

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/07/08/9dfe97ae-8274-11e8-8c40-58d9485981d4_972x_154305.jpg
Ninety per cent of the pupils at the primary school in rural Guangxi are “left-behind children”. Photo: Thepaper.cn

Ninety per cent of the school’s 178 pupils are “left-behind children” from poor families, he told the news outlet.

There are some 61 million of these children in China, whose parents – either one or both – have left their rural homes to find jobs as migrant workers in the cities. They account for about 22 per cent of all children in the country, according to a 2013 report by the All-China Women’s Federation.

“I’m feeling happy but also sad for these children,” one person wrote on Weibo, referring to their plight as left-behind children.

“This is a very down-to-earth gift! Very practical,” another said.

Such a strange and sad story.

GeneChing

08-06-2018, 07:58 AM

...nearly half a billion gross. :eek:

Jury tells pork giant to pay $473.5M in nuisance lawsuit (https://apnews.com/ccf8015cc94c43558f28f8f1f4a0f066)
By ALEX DEROSIER and EMERY P. DALESIO
Aug. 03, 2018

https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/media:02c2f707dcbc4a49881b7fb05223dfad/800.jpeg

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal jury decided Friday that the world’s largest pork producer should pay $473.5 million to neighbors of three North Carolina industrial-scale hog farms for unreasonable nuisances they suffered from odors, flies and rumbling trucks

The jury found that Smithfield Foods owes compensation to six neighbors who complained in their lawsuit that the company failed to stop “the obnoxious, recurrent odors and other causes of nuisance” resulting from closely packed hogs, which “generate many times more sewage than entire towns.”

The jury awarded $23.5 million in compensatory damages and $450 million in punitive damages, which will be reduced to a total of $94 million under limits in state law.

The case comes after two previous, related lawsuits rocked agribusiness in the country’s No. 2 pork-producing state. Juries in those two cases awarded damages of about $75 million intended to punish Smithfield, though those amounts also were required to be cut.

North Carolina legislators reacted by adopting new barriers against nuisance lawsuits that all but eliminate the ability of neighbors to sue Smithfield Foods or any other agribusiness. Critics billed the legislation as an attack on private property rights in order to protect a well-heeled industry.

U.S. Sen Thom Tillis and U.S. Rep. David Rouzer suggested they might seek national legislation after hearing Friday from agribusiness executives and agriculture officials from North Carolina, Georgia, Delaware and Texas in Raleigh.

“Today’s nuisance lawsuits that are destroying livelihoods and communities in North Carolina are the tip of the iceberg for what is to come absent a well-informed public and good public policy,” Rouzer said in a prepared statement Thursday. “This is a very slippery slope that threatens the very existence of every form of agriculture nationwide.”

Industry group the North Carolina Pork Council decried the jury’s decision in a statement warning that it could lead to more lawsuits across the country.

“This verdict will spread from eastern North Carolina to all corners of American agriculture,” the group said, calling for an appeal of the decision they described as unfair and unjust.

Environmental advocates said there’s good reason pork producers have been getting hit with penalties.

“These juries are repeatedly seeing problems with the kind of waste management that’s used,” said Cassie Gavin, a lobbyist with the North Carolina Sierra Club. “Clearly it’s time for the state and the industry to take a hard look at their waste management and modernize it so the public is protected.”

The Pender County, North Carolina, farms at the center of the lawsuit held thousands of hogs owned by a Smithfield Foods subsidiary. Smithfield was sued because plaintiffs’ lawyers said the company used strict contracts to dictate how farmers raised Smithfield’s animals.

One neighbor who was not part of the suit compared the waste stench to long-dead corpses he found during his career as a police officer and firefighter, news outlets reported. Wesley Sewell testified that he bought his house out of foreclosure without realizing the hog operations were nearby and sometimes fled to another home when the smells were too strong.

Lawyers for the neighbors said Smithfield hasn’t taken measures that would minimize the nuisances, for example by sending trucks along a back road to pick up hogs for slaughter in the middle of the night instead of rumbling past sleeping homes. Nor has the company covered the waste pits or otherwise tried to capture the smell and bacteria resulting from pooling liquefied waste, lawyers for the neighbors said. The company has done that in Missouri and Colorado, attorneys said.

The predominant method of handling hog waste in North Carolina is collecting it in open-air pits that are emptied by spraying liquid excrement on farm fields. The method was banned at new livestock operations in 1997, when industrial-scale hog operations began to be planned near the Pinehurst golf resort two years before it would host the U.S. Open tournament.

Smithfield has continued using the low-cost method because it helps the company produce pork for less than in China, lawyers for the neighbors said. Smithfield is owned by Hong Kong-headquartered WH Group, which posted profits of about $1 billion last year.

____

Follow Emery P. Dalesio on Twitter at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/emery%20dalesio
___

This story has been corrected to show six neighbors will receive compensation, not 16.

GeneChing

09-13-2018, 07:52 AM

This might sour your bacon...:(

China bans feeding of food waste to hogs in provinces with African swine fever (https://www.businessinsider.com/r-china-bans-feeding-of-food-waste-to-hogs-in-provinces-with-african-swine-fever-2018-9?r=UK&IR=T)
Reuters 4h

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has banned the use of food waste as pig feed in provinces that have reported African swine fever outbreaks as well as neighboring regions, the agriculture ministry said on Thursday, the latest measure to try to halt the spread of the disease.

The use of pig blood as a raw material in producing feed for pigs has also been banned, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in a statement online.

The ministry will also require producers of pig feed to submit samples for testing, with any feed testing positive for the virus required to be recalled from the market and destroyed.

African swine fever is a highly contagious disease that cannot be cured and has no vaccine. It can also be transmitted in pork products, animal feed or by people.

https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/CHINA-SWINEFEVER/0100803B05R/CHINA-SWINEFEVER.jpg

China has reported 13 outbreaks of the disease in six provinces since early August, mostly on small farms. It has banned the transport of live animals from the infected provinces as well as neighboring regions to contain the spread, halting trade across the country and sending prices in some areas soaring.

It has also shuttered live markets in 16 provinces, which will largely hurt small pig farmers.

Banning the use of kitchen waste for pig farmers would also hurt the small farmers, who often resort to scraps to cut costs, particularly when pig prices are low.

By law, food waste must be heat-treated to kill any bacteria or disease that could infect pigs but that process is often skipped to save costs.

The ministry said that farmers must ensure that all food waste used for pigs in provinces not impacted by the disease be heated before being used.

(Reporting by Dominique Patton; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

GeneChing

11-02-2018, 01:11 PM

NOVEMBER 1, 2018 / 4:38 AM / A DAY AGO
China tightens controls on pig transport to contain swine fever outbreaks (https://www.reuters.com/article/china-swinefever-transportation/china-tightens-controls-on-pig-transport-to-contain-swine-fever-outbreaks-idUSL3N1XC47T)
2 MIN READ

BEIJING, Nov 1 (Reuters) -

* China has ordered enhanced supervision of vehicles transporting live pigs to contain the spread of deadly African swine fever in the country, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Thursday

* Vehicles must be equipped with corrosion-resistant and leak-proof walls and floors, as well as simple cleaning and sterilisation facilities, the ministry said on its website

* They should also be registered with local husbandry authorities, with the necessary documentation

* Trucks transporting live pigs between China’s provinces and regions, as well as across counties within provinces where African swine fever has been found and neighbouring regions, must be equipped with location-tracking systems

* Transporters must provide necessary water and feeding conditions for the pigs

* They must take necessary measures to prevent pigs becoming stressed when the vehicles pass through high- or low-temperature areas

* Transporters must clean and sterilise the vehicles before loading and offloading, and record detailed information of the journey

* China has reported almost 50 outbreaks of the highly contagious disease in 13 provinces since early August. (Reporting by Hallie Gu and Tom Daly; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

This article didn't come with a pic.

So I'm adding this one.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/19/f5/2c/19f52cbe64511ae8c7bf2cfd5125bc0b.jpg

GeneChing

12-07-2018, 10:42 AM

Stuffed pigs used in drill to instruct Hong Kong agricultural officials in how to cull sick animals in event of African swine fever outbreak (https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/2176783/not-so-cuddly-stuffed-pigs-used-training-drill)
Photos of the exercise, which were posted on health minister Sophia Chan’s Facebook page, proved to be a surprising social media hit
PUBLISHED : Friday, 07 December, 2018, 8:31am
UPDATED : Friday, 07 December, 2018, 12:52pm
Ng Kang-chung

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980x551/public/images/methode/2018/12/07/3c3d2f4a-f924-11e8-93b8-bdc844c69537_1280x720_125204.JPG?itok=fipQ6ZZe

Toys pigs, with a price tag of up to HK$700 (US$89) each, were enlisted to a drill this week to help train Hong Kong agricultural officials in how to kill sick animals in the event of African swine fever spreading across the border to Hong Kong farms.

Whether it is a bargain or not is a matter of opinion, but taxpayers have been told the toy pigs will cost them a total of about HK$20,000.

The surreal scenes of officials, in full protective gear, playing with the pink fluffy toy pigs – sending them to the cull one by one – quickly attracted the attention of the public after the pictures were posted on the official Facebook page of health minister Sophia Chan Siu-chee.

The post, uploaded on Tuesday night, quickly became Chan’s most popular post in at least the past month, attracting over 43 comments and 156 “shares” in two days, compared with her usual Facebook posts that draw only a few comments.

One comment read: “The pigs are so cute.” Another read: “Can I adopt one?” Some were not too amused though, questioning if it was a waste of taxpayers’ money to buy toy pigs.

https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/12/07/3c75e2fe-f924-11e8-93b8-bdc844c69537_1320x770_125204.JPG
Agricultural officials conducting a swine fever culling drill using stuffed pigs. Photo: Facebook

The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department confirmed in a statement on Thursday that it had conducted a “drill” two days earlier “to strengthen the preparedness of [the department] in case of an outbreak of [African swine fever]” on local farms.

The department did not elaborate on the mood of staff or the atmosphere during the training exercise, or who had first raised the idea of buying toy pigs for the drill, only saying that “more than 30 staff members, all of whom were from [the department], were involved in this drill”.

“A total of 28 big prop pigs (around HK$700 each) and two small prop pigs (around HK$80 each) were used during the drill. Prop pigs have not been disposed of but are currently stored away for reuse,” the statement read.

https://cdn3.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/12/07/3d275c78-f924-11e8-93b8-bdc844c69537_1320x770_125204.JPG
Marching the pigs to the cull. Photo: Facebook

How useful using toy pigs in a pig culling drill is, is anybody’s guess. The department statement also noted: “In reality, the method to be adopted for pig culling is subject to various factors, including the environment of the farm concerned, the number of pigs within the farm, the health conditions and size of the pigs, etcetera, and international guidelines on the culling of animals.

“Under objective conditions, [the department] will primarily make use of carbon dioxide for pig culling.”

Chan said in her post that she was there to oversee the drill, including inspecting the method employed to kill pigs. She was also briefed by the officers on their plans for a possible outbreak of African swine fever in Hong Kong farms.

https://cdn3.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/12/07/3cb1aa6e-f924-11e8-93b8-bdc844c69537_1320x770_125204.JPG
Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee with health officials during this week’s swine fever drill. Photo: Facebook

African swine fever is a highly contagious viral disease that infects pigs. It does not affect other animal species or humans.

China reported its first outbreak in August in the north-eastern province of Liaoning. A total of 81 cases of the disease had been reported in 21 provincial regions as of December 3. Officials claimed the outbreaks were generally under control in China.

In her Facebook post, Chan said the government would take “decisive action” to minimise the impact on local farms if African swine fever were to spread to Hong Kong.

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Cheung

THREADS
Best remedy for Swine Flu? H1N1 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53888-Best-remedy-for-Swine-Flu-H1N1)
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
Year of the Pig 2019 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71112-Year-of-the-Pig-2019)

GeneChing

12-18-2018, 08:50 AM

DECEMBER 18, 2018 / 3:59 AM / UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO
China agriculture ministry confirms new African swine fever outbreak in Chongqing (https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFB9N1WP020)
1 MIN READ

BEIJING, Dec 18 (Reuters) - A new outbreak of African swine fever has been confirmed on a small pig farm in southwest China’s city of Chongqing, the country’s agriculture ministry on Tuesday.

The virus was detected on a farm with 23 pigs in Chongqing’s Bishan district, infecting eight animals and killing three, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in a statement.

China, home to the world’s biggest pig herd, has reported around 90 outbreaks of the highly contagious fever since August and earlier on Tuesday launched a campaign to crack down on illegal hog slaughtering to contain the spread. (Reporting by Tom Daly; editing by David Evans)

THREADS
Best remedy for Swine Flu? H1N1 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53888-Best-remedy-for-Swine-Flu-H1N1)
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
Year of the Pig 2019 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71112-Year-of-the-Pig-2019)

GeneChing

01-03-2019, 09:12 AM

This is really bad.

JANUARY 2, 2019 / 3:21 AM / UPDATED 9 HOURS AGO
African swine fever hits huge, foreign-invested Chinese farm (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-swinefever/african-swine-fever-hits-huge-foreign-invested-chinese-farm-idUSKCN1OW0RB)
4 MIN READ

BEIJING (Reuters) - China reported an outbreak of deadly African swine fever on a huge pig farm part-owned by a Danish investment fund, showing the spread of the virus to modern industrial farms expected to have the best levels of disease prevention.

http://s3.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20190103&t=2&i=1341606068&r=LYNXNPEF0209Q
A vendor prepares pork for sale at a market in Beijing, China December 26, 2018. Picture taken December 26, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee

The outbreak occurred on a farm in Suihua city with 73,000 pigs in northeastern Heilongjiang province, owned by the Heilongjiang Asia-Europe Animal Husbandry Co Ltd, a company established in 2016.

The farm’s herd included 15,000 breeding pigs, according to its website, and it was aiming to produce 385,000 pigs for slaughter a year. Some 4,686 pigs had been infected and 3,766 animals died, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said late on Wednesday. All animals on infected farms must be culled under current rules.

The farm is the largest yet to be hit by the disease, which has infected almost 100 farms across China since August 2018, spreading faster than in any other country to date.

More than 200,000 pigs on infected farms have been culled, according to a Reuters tally of official figures, while hundreds of thousands more in the vicinity have also been put down.

China has the world’s largest hog herd and the rapid spread of African swine fever has roiled the country’s trade in pork, the nation’s most popular meat, disrupting supplies and pushing up prices in some areas.

Neither Heilongjiang Asia-Europe Animal Husbandry nor its majority owner, state-owned Zhejiang Rural Development Group Co. Ltd, responded to calls for comment.

Steffen Schiottz-Christensen, vice president for North Asia at Denmark state fund IFU, confirmed the outbreak but declined to comment further as he had yet to be fully briefed.

IFU, which provides risk capital and advice for investment in developing countries, invested 28.4 million DKK ($4.32 million) in the farm in 2017, according to its website, although its shareholding has since been diluted, Schiottz-Christensen said.

“The African swine fever situation is only getting worse. Small farms, big farms, slaughterhouses, feed - the whole production chain basically all got hit,” said Yao Guiling, an analyst with consultancy China-America Commodity Data Analytics.

Beijing has banned feeding kitchen waste to pigs, and restricted transport of live pigs and products from infected areas.

But the virus has now reached 23 provinces and municipalities across China. The disease is deadly to pigs but does not affect humans.

“The policies are good, but the increasing outbreaks show that there might be some problem with execution at the local government level,” said Yao.

China’s agriculture ministry also said on Wednesday that slaughterhouses will need to test their pork products for African swine fever before selling them to the market.

Slaughterhouses must slaughter pigs from different origins separately, and can only sell the products if blood from the same batch of pigs tests negative for the virus.

If the virus is detected, slaughterhouses must cull all pigs to be slaughtered and suspend operations for at least 48 hours, according to the regulation, which will go into effect from Feb. 1.

(For a graphic on 'Swine fever in China' click tmsnrt.rs/2QMhmzL)

Reporting by Hallie Gu and Dominique Patton; editing by David Evans and Richard Pullin

THREADS
Best remedy for Swine Flu? H1N1 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53888-Best-remedy-for-Swine-Flu-H1N1)
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
Year of the Pig 2019 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71112-Year-of-the-Pig-2019)

GeneChing

01-18-2019, 10:17 AM

UPDATE 1-CHINA URGES PIG FARMS TO RESTOCK AMID WORRIES OVER PORK SUPPLY, SWINE FEVER (https://www.agriculture.com/markets/newswire/update-1-china-urges-pig-farms-to-restock-amid-worries-over-pork-supply-swine-fever)
1/15/2019
* China pork prices "very likely" to rise in H2 -govt official

* But does not expect them to climb in run up to Lunar New Year

* Wants pig farmers to restock quickly

* China battling African swine fever, has culled 900,000 pigs (Recasts; adds comment, detail)

BEIJING, Jan 16 (Reuters) - China's pig farmers should quickly replenish their herds, a government official said, as the world's biggest pork producer looks to curb price rises for the meat expected to bite later this year in the wake of African swine fever outbreaks.

Pork prices in China are "very likely" to rise in the second-half of 2019 as the number of pigs has been falling, Tang Ke at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Wednesday.

"We recommend most farmers adjust their production and increase replenishment in a timely manner," said Tang, even as they carry out steps to prevent and control African swine fever.

The comments come as China battles the world's fastest spreading epidemic of African swine fever, which has now reached 24 of its provinces and led to the culling of more than 900,000 pigs. The disease is deadly to hogs, but does not affect people.

The outbreaks have not yet hit national pork prices and supplies are currently "sufficient", said Tang, who expected no major volatility ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday beginning in early February when the meat is widely consumed.

However, measures implemented to control the spread of the disease have kept live pig prices in some parts of the country at loss-making levels, leading to liquidation by small farmers and slow restocking.

National pig stocks in December were almost 5 percent lower than the previous year's level, said Tang, while numbers of breeding sows were down by more than 8 percent. He did not give total numbers for the herd size.

"For three consecutive months the drop was more than the 5 percent warning level, meaning that in the second-half of this year, the number of live pigs to reach the market will be lower and the likelihood of pig prices rising is very big," he said.

The ministry would work to ensure production and supplies by smoothing the transport of pigs and making sure animals can be sold, he added.

The average weight of pigs in the country was at a record of around 124 kg (273 lb) in December, said Tang, indicating difficulty in selling pigs in key producing regions.

CONSUMER CONCERNS

For now, live pig prices are still low, and may even be slightly weaker in the run up to the Lunar New Year, Tang also said.

The average price of live pigs in the second week of January was 13.65 yuan ($2.02) per kg, down 1.6 percent from the previous week, and has dropped for four consecutive weeks, he added.

Pork prices have also declined in the last week by 0.9 percent to 23.55 yuan per kg, and are down almost 8 percent versus last year.

"The volumes of pork traded at monitored farmers' markets has dropped by 14.4 percent, consumer demand is weakening," Tang said. ($1 = 6.7684 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Dominique Patton; Editing by Joseph Radford)

THREADS
Best remedy for Swine Flu? H1N1 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53888-Best-remedy-for-Swine-Flu-H1N1)
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
Year of the Pig 2019 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71112-Year-of-the-Pig-2019)

GeneChing

01-25-2019, 08:31 AM

sweet & sour.

that's a lot of bacon.

US pork sales to China dropped by more than 250,000 tons last year as the trade war hits American farmers (https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-trade-war-2018-china-pork-sales-dropped-by-more-than-250000-tons-2019-1)
Will Martin 1m

https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/53dfef98ecad049e50f4aa05-1334-667.jpg
USDA

Chinese pork imports from the US dropped more than 50% in 2018 as a result of the tariffs put in place during the Trump trade war.
According to a report from Reuters, the US sent 263,000 tons of pork to China last year, down from more than 500,000 tons in 2017.
The fall in pork imports from the US follows a similar pattern to the drop in the amount of soybeans sent to China last year.
Chinese imports of US-bred pork dropped more than 250,000 tons in 2018 as the impact of the trade war between the two nations hit the meat market.

Imports of prime cuts and offal combined dropped 55% in the year, following the imposition of major tariffs on the meat, which is the most consumed in China.

According to a report from Reuters, the US sent 263,000 tons of pork to China last year, down from more than 500,000 tons in 2017. Using data from the General Administration of Customs, Reuters calculated that US exports of pork offal dropped 58% to 177,041 tons in 2018.

China is far and away the world's largest importer of non-prime cuts of pork — things like feet, ears, and offal — with 9 out of 10 pigs ears sent overseas by US producers going to the country. The market for total offal shipments to China last year was in excess of $870 million.

China is both the biggest consumer and producer of pork in the world, and the meat is effectively a staple food for many Chinese citizens. Demand for pork has boomed in recent years thanks to a growing population and increasing affluence among Chinese citizens.

Previously, the country was largely able to serve demand with domestically reared animals, but population growth has led it to look overseas.

The fall in Chinese pork imports from the US follows a similar pattern to the drop in the amount of soybeans moving between the two nations as a result of tariffs.

Soybean exports from the US to China plunged after tariffs were first introduced, and although China has officially resumed its purchases, demand remains stifled, causing major problems for US farmers.

In November it was reported that farmers in some US states are being forced into plowing their crops under — effectively burying them in their fields — because there is not enough room in storage facilities. All grain depots and silos are almost full, meaning farmers have to figure out their own storage or let the crops rot.

Even after Beijing agreed in trade talks with Washington to resume American soybean purchases, prices of the legume are still down more than 7% from a year earlier and aren't expected to improve anytime soon.

"The outlook for US soybean prices is bleak," said Yasemin Engin, an economist at Capital Economics.

GeneChing

02-04-2019, 09:01 AM

FEBRUARY 3, 2019 / 7:14 PM / UPDATED 13 HOURS AGO
Stop pigging out and save the planet, Chinese told ahead of Lunar New Year (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lunar-newyear-climatechange/stop-pigging-out-and-save-the-planet-chinese-told-ahead-of-lunar-new-year-idUSKCN1PT04O)
Beh Lih Yi
3 MIN READ

http://s4.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20190204&t=2&i=1352974144&r=LYNXNPEF13038&w=1200

KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As Chinese people celebrate the new Year of the Pig this week, environmental campaigners are urging them to eat less pork and help save the planet.

Men perform a dragon dance called Liong ahead of the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year during the Grebeg Suro ceremony in Solo, Central Java province, Indonesia, February 3, 2019 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. Antara Foto/Mohammad Ayudha/via REUTERS. A
China consumes more meat than any other country and accounts for half the world’s consumption of pork, which is used in everything from dumplings and stir-fries to hotpots.

That has helped make it the world’s biggest emitter of climate-warming greenhouse gases - according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), livestock are responsible for about 14.5 percent of global emissions.

“Chinese emissions can be reduced by almost 10 percent in the next decade if Chinese people just ate half as much meat,” said Jen Leung, China climate director at the U.S.-based charity WildAid.

“So just try eating a little less pork in honor of a healthy Year of the Pig,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Twelve animals make up the traditional Chinese zodiac and this week marks the transition from year of the dog to year of the pig.

The week-long holiday starts on starts on Monday, the eve of the new year, and is the most important in the Chinese calendar, when millions of people travel home.

Many restaurants have special menus to mark the festival, which is celebrated by Chinese communities around the world.

In Hong Kong, famous for its dim sum and barbeque pork, one company is partnering with restaurants to promote Lunar New Year dishes cooked with its “vegan pork” made with ingredients including soybeans and peas.

“Traditional belief dictates that we should not eat the same animal during their year in order to bring good luck - so pig year don’t eat pork,” said Alvin Lee, marketing manager at Green Monday, a social enterprise that promotes sustainable living.

“But more importantly it’s to address the issue of food safety and to mitigate climate change,” he said, referring to a recent outbreak of deadly African swine fever on pig farms in China.

On Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, animal rights group PETA has launched a campaign to honor the “playful” animal with the hashtag #PigYearDontEatThem.

“Animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gases than all the world’s transportation systems combined,” PETA Asia campaigner Jason Baker said.

China issued dietary guidelines in 2016 recommending people halve their meat consumption - a move lauded by environmentalists as a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions as well as boosting public health.

Experts said people were unlikely to give up on their pork dumplings any time soon in China, where meat is still associated with wealth and status.

“It’s quite challenging because culturally there are quite a lot of values attached to being able to eat meat,” Beau Damen, an expert on climate change at the FAO in Bangkok, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“But one thing consumers do have to keep in mind is that choices about what we eat do have a direct impact on the environment,” he warned.

Reporting by Beh Lih Yi @behlihyi; Editing by Claire Cozens. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit news.trust.org

Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
Year of the Pig 2019 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71112-Year-of-the-Pig-2019)
WildAid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57416-WildAid-Tiger-Claw-Champion)

GeneChing

02-13-2019, 08:36 AM

There is an astonishing amount of pig news on the web. Who knew?

Russian woman 'eaten by pigs' after collapsing (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47161035)
7 February 2019

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/83BD/production/_105552733_039943697.jpg
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Media reports say an investigation into the incident has been launched. File image

A 56-year-old woman has been eaten by pigs after collapsing in their pen, Russian media report.

After venturing out to feed the animals in a village in the central Russian region of Udmurtia, the farmer reportedly fainted or suffered an epileptic seizure.

Her husband later found the body. She reportedly died of blood loss.

Their farm is in a village in the Malopurginsky district of Udmurtia, east of the city of Kazan.

Local media say the husband had gone to bed early the day before as he was feeling unwell.

After waking to find his wife missing, he came upon her body in the pen.

Media reports say an investigation into the incident has been launched.

Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
Year of the Pig 2019 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71112-Year-of-the-Pig-2019)

GeneChing

02-19-2019, 11:04 AM

This is so random that I can't resist posting it.

Frozen pork chop as blunt instrument: woman arrested after hurling hunk of solid meat at her Valentine (https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-news-pork-chop-woman-hit-boyfriend-arrested-20190214-story.html)
By THERESA BRAINE
| NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
FEB 14, 2019 | 6:44 PM

https://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/WZyKUH7OM9BXTTNVp9EwXALjirA=/800x0/www.trbimg.com/img-5c65f9fd/turbine/ny-1550187000-o54ghqj1by-snap-image
Jennifer Brassard (Pasco County Sheriff's Office)

A Florida woman was charged with domestic battery after hurling a frozen pork chop at her boyfriend’s face, hitting him above the eyebrow.

Jennifer Brassard, 48, got into an argument around 9:45 p.m. on Feb. 1 with her beloved, WFLA reported.

She flung the meat and hit him in the eyebrow, giving him a half-inch laceration, WFLA said, citing the arrest report. Brassard left the home soon after and was arrested the next day.

THREADS
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
Year of the Pig 2019 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71112-Year-of-the-Pig-2019)

GeneChing

07-12-2019, 10:35 AM

JULY 12, 2019 / 4:06 AM / UPDATED 6 HOURS AGO
China vows to tackle dead pig scam amid swine fever epidemic (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-swinefever/china-vows-to-tackle-dead-pig-scam-amid-swine-fever-epidemic-idUSKCN1U71CN)
2 MIN READ

https://s3.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20190712&t=2&i=1407211595&w=1200&r=LYNXNPEF6B0SO
FILE PHOTO: Piglets are seen by a sow at a pig farm in Zhoukou, Henan province, China June 3, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

BEIJING (Reuters) - Criminal gangs in China are faking outbreaks of African swine fever on farms free of the disease and forcing farmers to sell their healthy pigs at sharply lower prices, the agriculture ministry said on Friday.

The gangs are taking advantage of a highly contagious disease that has spread across much of the country and disrupted the world’s biggest pork market.

The scam involves dumping dead pigs on farms and then spreading rumors that the farms are infected with African swine fever, which is often fatal for pigs but harmless for humans.

The gangs then pressure farmers to sell their hogs at lower prices, violating farmers’ rights and affecting normal pig production, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in a statement.

The ministry did not give more details but it urged anyone who witnessed such activities to alert the authorities.

“All localities should be vigilant and actively guard against it,” it said.

Up to half of China’s breeding pigs have either died from African swine fever or been slaughtered because of the spreading disease, twice as many as officially acknowledged, Reuters reported last month.

Reporting by Tom Daly; editing by Darren Schuettler

THREADS
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
Year of the Pig 2019 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71112-Year-of-the-Pig-2019)

GeneChing

08-23-2019, 11:22 AM

A miserable Year of the Pig for China’s hogs is godsend for American farmers (https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/3023181/miserable-year-pig-chinas-hogs-godsend-american-farmers)
Outlook for China’s hog farming sector is bleak, as the overall herd size is forecast to fall 20 per cent this year and a further 10 per cent next year
US pork exports to China doubled in the second quarter to 60,898 tonnes from a year earlier
Eric Ng
Published: 2:30am, 17 Aug, 2019

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/d8/images/methode/2019/08/17/b30c3b8a-c01a-11e9-8f25-9b5536624008_image_hires_115842.jpg?itok=7qPRUeZx&v=1566014333
Illustration by SCMP

In China, pigs symbolise wealth. And 2019, being the Year of the Pig, was supposed to be a great year to make money. Instead, the nation’s 26 million hog farmers are battling the deadly African swine fever epidemic that is in its second year now.
The virus, harmless to humans, has spread across 32 of the nation’s 34 administrative regions since the outbreak was first reported in August 2018, affecting a large portion of the nation’s 348 million strong swine inventory, according to Rabobank.
“We estimate China’s current herd loss is 40 per cent year on year, which may expand to over 50 per cent by year-end,” the Dutch bank said in a report last month. “We expect an additional 10 to 15 per cent decline in both herd and pork production in 2020.”
The outbreak, which has wiped out 20 per cent of the planet’s hog herd, is pushing the Chinese government to look for imports from the US, Europe and Brazil, and substitutes such as beef, poultry, fish and even plant-based protein.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2019/08/17/e1924e1a-bfe6-11e9-8f25-9b5536624008_1320x770_115842.JPG
Piglets at a farm in Yiyang county, in China’s central Henan province. Photo: AFP

The highly contagious disease that kills all pigs and wild boars it infects was originally restricted to Africa. In 2007, it was first seen in Georgia at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. It has since spread westwards to eastern and central Europe and eastward to Asia, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
After infecting hogs in China last year, it has moved this year into farms in Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. There is no cure.
While vaccine candidates are being evaluated in laboratories in several nations including China, a cure is still several years away, said Dirk Pfeiffer, a professor at City University’s Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences in Hong Kong.
Mainland China had lost 26.7 per cent of its breeding sows by the end of June from a year earlier based on the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs’ tally.
The effect of a major decline in new pig births began to surface this summer, after hog supply initially rose and suppressed pork prices before sick pigs were culled to contain the epidemic.
Hog prices have risen 80 per cent this month from their lows in February to around 19 yuan a catty (US$2.70 for 600 grams). The prices are up some 46 per cent before the epidemic broke out.
As pork – a staple in China – is the leading driver of food prices, consumer price inflation rose a higher than expected 2.8 per cent last month and could breach 3 per cent in the months ahead, Nomura economists said in a note.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2019/08/17/c6b0481c-c00a-11e9-8f25-9b5536624008_972x_115842.jpg
SCMP Graphics

This complicates the task of policymakers in Beijing who are already dealing with slowing economic growth amid an escalating trade war with the US.
China, which produces and consumes roughly half of the world’s pork, has been largely self-sufficient before the epidemic.
But the Chinese hog farming sector’s outlook is bleak, as the overall herd size is forecast to fall 20 per cent this year and a further 10 per cent next year, according to the Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Department of Agriculture.
A 6.2 per cent year on year fall in domestic hog supply in the first half meant the slaughtering and meat processing industry imported 818,702 tonnes of pork – 26.3 per cent higher year on year – to meet demand, according to government statistics.
Even the US, the world’s second largest pork producer and the largest exporter that is in the midst of a trade war with China, has helped to plug the supply gap in the past few months. Exports to China in the second quarter doubled year-on-year to 60,898 tonnes, according to the US Meat Export Federation.

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SCMP Graphics

This was made possible by a sharp increase in prices in China and depressed US prices because of excess supply, which helped to offset a 62 per cent import duty slapped by Beijing on US pork exports.
Meanwhile, US production is expected to grow 5.5 per cent year on year in the second half, thanks to a large breeding herd and higher productivity, according to Rabobank’s forecast.
This is bodes well for Hong Kong-listed WH Group, the world’s largest pork producer, which has been caught in the middle of the trade war.
Besides controlling China’s largest hog slaughtering and packaged pork facilities, WH also owns Virginia-based Smithfield Foods – the top US hog producer and pork processor – which it acquired in 2013.

continued next post

GeneChing

08-23-2019, 11:23 AM

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2019/08/17/ab252cde-bfe7-11e9-8f25-9b5536624008_1320x770_115842.JPG
WH Group chairman Wan Long (centre) said his company would increase pork imports from Europe and South America to hedge the risk of Chinese tariffs on US exports. Photo: Jonathan Wong

WH Group chairman Wan Long said on Tuesday to ensure it has enough supply to meet Chinese demand, the firm would increase imports from Europe and South America to hedge the risk of Chinese tariffs on US pork.
At the same time, Smithfield’s chief financial officer Glenn Nunziata said that while rising Chinese price premium over US prices is favourable for more fresh pork exports to China, the firm will also work on expanding sales to Mexico, Japan and South Korea as a backup.
A de-escalating of tensions would certainly help WH Group and other US pork suppliers.
But the trade appeared to have hit a massive hurdle this month when Beijing retaliated against US President Donald Trump’s move to impose 10 per cent tariff on US$300 billion by suspending purchase of US agricultural products.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2019/08/17/2ca580ca-bfe7-11e9-8f25-9b5536624008_1320x770_115842.JPG
Some of Smithfield Foods’ pork products, which is owned by Hong Kong-listed WH Group. Photo: Reuters

David Ortega, an agricultural economist with Michigan State University, said that the US, as the world’s top pork exporter, could nevertheless help satisfy Chinese demand.
“The rise in domestic Chinese pork prices can offset some of the tariff’s impact, but there is a lot of uncertainty as the trade negotiation is fairly fluid … other pork exporters like the EU and Brazil are positioning themselves to meet Chinese demand,” Ortega said.
Canada, another major pork exporter, has sent 217,193 tonnes to China in the first six months, up 50 per cent from last year, according to Canada’s Agriculture and Agri-Food Department.
However, since June 25 China has stopped accepting meat from Canada after a pork shipment was found to contain ractopamine, a banned feed additive.
The Canadian government said the shipment probably came from a third country and the certificate might have been falsified.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2019/08/17/8d3d60ce-bfe7-11e9-8f25-9b5536624008_1320x770_115842.JPG
Relations between China and Canada have cooled since Huawei Technologies’ CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver last December. Photo: The Canadian Press via AP

Relations between Canada and China rapidly soured last December after Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was detained on US charges relating to alleged violation of sanctions on Iran.
Other nations have also cashed in on opportunities.
Exports from the European Union – led by Germany, Spain and Denmark – in the year’s first five months surged 52 per cent year on year to 432,293 tonnes, while exports from Brazil in the first half gained 28.9 per cent to 92,188 tonnes, according to Darin Friedrichs, a Shanghai-based analyst at commodities brokerage INTL FCStone.
He expected the US to be the biggest potential source of additional pork supply to China as Canada has been banned and Europe only has limited extra supply, adding that negotiations for more supply from Brazil were ongoing.
However, even as China increases pork imports, he said there were bottlenecks that need to be addressed.
“A lot of the infrastructure isn’t built for frozen or chilled pork … it is for live hog that is killed close to the market,” he said.
Besides pork, China has also lifted chicken and beef imports by around 50 per cent in the first half from a year ago.
Friedrichs said that in the long term, small pig farms were expected to be phased out, while larger ones will deepen vertical integration into downstream slaughtering and processing so that hogs can avoid exposure to the virus.
This was likely to speed up industry consolidation, he added, noting Beijing has been offering farmers in northeast China subsidies to build larger facilities integrating breeding and slaughtering.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2019/08/17/a102f690-bf43-11e9-8f25-9b5536624008_1320x770_115842.jpg
Darin Friedrichs, a Shanghai-based analyst at commodities brokerage INTL FCStone, says China’s pig farming sector will see consolidation. Photo: Handout

For leading Chinese companies that have capacity to expand, the future looks bright.
Shenzhen-listed Muyuan Foodstuff, China’s second largest pork producer that sold 11 million heads of hogs last year, said in July that it expected to post a net profit of between 376 million yuan and 396 million yuan in the second quarter on the back of higher prices, after a loss of 145 million yuan in the first quarter.
The epidemic has not derailed its aggressive target to boost production to 14 million heads this year, according to a report from brokerage Changjiang Securities.
Still, Pfeiffer of City University, said it will be a long road to recovery for the industry because of the sheer density of farms in China and poor biosecurity behaviour in the entire chain right from farmers to slaughterhouse staff.
“It would be a miracle if African swine fever can be controlled, let alone eradicated, within the next five to 10 years,” he said.

THREADS
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
Year of the Pig 2019 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71112-Year-of-the-Pig-2019)
Trade War (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71299-Trade-War)

GeneChing

10-07-2019, 07:50 AM

China is breeding giant pigs the size of polar bears to cope with supply plunge after African swine fever (https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/china-is-breeding-giant-pigs-the-size-of-polar-bears-to-cope-with-supply-plunge-after)

https://www.straitstimes.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_pictrure_780x520_/public/articles/2019/10/06/nm-pigschina-0610.jpg?itok=2_Iw9GaR&timestamp=1570329072
A student feeds pigs at a farm next to a primary school in Xuanwei, Yunnan province, China, on Dec 22, 2018. PHOTO: REUTERS
PUBLISHEDOCT 6, 2019, 10:18 AM SGT

BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) - In a farm deep in the southern region of China lives a very big pig that is as heavy as a polar bear.

The 500kg animal is part of a herd that is being bred to become giant swine. At slaughter, some of the pigs can sell for more than 10,000 yuan (S$1,900), over three times higher than the average monthly disposable income in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi province where Mr Pang Cong, the farm's owner, lives.

While Mr Pang's pigs may be an extreme example of the lengths that farmers are going to fill China's swelling pork shortage problem, the idea that bigger is better has been spreading across the country, home to the world's most voracious consumers of the meat.

High pork prices in the north-eastern province of Jilin is prompting farmers to raise pigs to reach an average weight of 175kg to 200kg, higher than the normal weight of 125kg.

They want to raise them "as big as possible", said Mr Zhao Hailin, a hog farmer in the region.

The trend is not limited to small farms either. Major protein producers in China, including Wens Foodstuffs Group, the country's top pig breeder, Cofco Meat Holdings and Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group say they are trying to increase the average weight of their pigs. Big farms are focusing on boosting the heft by at least 14 per cent, said Mr Lin Guofa, a senior analyst with consulting firm Bric Agriculture Group.

The average weight of pigs at slaughter at some large-scale farms has climbed to as much as 140kg, compared with about 110kg normally, Mr Lin said. That could boost profits by more than 30 per cent, he said.

With African swine fever decimating the nation's hog herd - in half, by some estimates - prices of pork have soared to record levels, leading the government to urge farmers to boost production to temper inflation.

Chinese Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua warned that the supply situation will be extremely severe through to the first half of 2020. China will face a pork shortage of 10 million tonnes this year, more than what is available in global trade, meaning it needs to increase production domestically, Mr Hu said.

During a recent visit to major livestock provinces of Shandong, Hebei and Henan, Mr Hu urged local governments to resume pig production as soon possible, with a target of returning to normal levels next year.

Still, many farmers are wary about restocking swine after being hurt by an earlier outbreak. Also, piglet and breeding sow prices have surged, making it more expensive for backyard farms to rebuild their herds. Increasing the size of pigs they already own may be the next best step.

THREADS
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
Year of the Pig 2019 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71112-Year-of-the-Pig-2019)

GeneChing

10-14-2019, 08:27 AM

Business
Kim Jong Un May Be Hiding a Hog Apocalypse From the World (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-12/kim-jong-un-may-be-hiding-a-hog-apocalypse-from-the-world)
By Heesu Lee
October 12, 2019, 2:00 PM PDT Updated on October 13, 2019, 2:21 AM PDT
African swine fever is said to have spread across North Korea
Virus risks becoming endemic, dispersing to neighboring states

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/ijeoocJqYIe0/v0/1200x-1.jpg
Pigs at a farm in Paju on Sept. 17. Photographer: Yelim Lee/AFP via Getty Images

By official accounts, the pig contagion wreaking havoc across Eastern Asia has virtually skipped over North Korea, with a single outbreak reported there in May. But wayward feral pigs have stoked concern that Kim Jong Un’s reclusive state is hiding an African swine fever disaster.

Five wild boars were found dead in or near border areas separating the two countries this month before being tested positive for the viral hemorrhagic disease, officials in South Korea said. The finding reflects the freedom with which animals roam the 4-kilometer (2.5 mile) wide buffer zone that divides the nations and creates an involuntary park and refuge for fauna.

It also hints at a spillover of the deadly virus from North Korea, where unofficial reports indicate the disease is spreading out of control. South Korea has deployed helicopters to disinfect parts of the 250-kilometer-long border-barrier, near which more than a dozen outbreaks have occurred on farms since the virus was first reported there a month ago.

African swine fever has spread to almost all areas of North Korea, and pigs in the western province of North Pyongan have been “wiped out,” said Lee Hye-hoon, who chairs the National Assembly’s intelligence committee, citing South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

The virus killed 22 hogs in May on a cooperative farm about 260 kilometers north of Pyongyang, near the border with China, North Korea’s agriculture ministry said in a May 30 report to the World Organization for Animal Health, or OIE.

But since then, there have been no follow-up reports to the Paris-based veterinary body, and scant coverage of the event in state media.

UN Delegate

The Food and Agriculture Organization has no information beyond the report received by the OIE, said Wantanee Kalpravidh, the United Nations agency’s Bangkok-based regional manager of the Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases. The FAO is awaiting approval to send a delegate to North Korea, she said in a text message Friday.

Widespread transmission of African swine fever, which isn’t known to harm humans but kills most pigs in a week, may put North Korea’s food security in graver jeopardy.

Crop production there is forecast to be smaller than usual for the rest of 2019 due to below-average rainfall and low water supplies for irrigation, the FAO said last month. About 40% of the population, or 10.1 million people, are estimated to be food-insecure and in urgent need of food assistance, according to results from an UN assessment conducted last April.

Worse Hunger

African swine fever will worsen hunger and malnutrition, said Cho Chunghi, who fled North Korea in 2011 after spending a decade working for the government’s animal disease control program. Many North Korean households raise pigs to earn money to buy rice.

Hunger Pains

The number of North Koreans suffering from malnutrition is rising

“Pork accounts for about 80% of North Korea’s protein consumption and with global sanctions taking place, it’s going to be hard for the country to find an alternative protein source,” said Cho, who now works as a researcher at Good Farmers, a Seoul-based non-governmental organization that supports developing nations to generate profit through agricultural activities.

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iRB9n8NwZNug/v0/800x-1.jpg
South Korean quarantine officials control a road near a farm in Paju on Sept. 17.Photographer: Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty Images

“The virus is extremely destructive as people are now unable to make money through raising pigs, while the country’s economy is restrained,” he said.

Pigs raised by individual farms outnumber those on state-owned and collective farms, which will make it almost impossible to halt the spread, especially given North Korea’s inexperience preventing and mitigating epidemics in animals, Cho said.

Russia, China

This lack of capacity is a threat to the entire Korean Peninsula, where the virus could become endemic, or generally present. That would make it more difficult to stamp out the disease through the usual steps of quarantining and culling diseased and vulnerable livestock. From there, it could also re-enter neighboring China and Russia.

South Korea has culled 154,653 pigs at 94 farms as of Oct. 11, according to the nation’s agriculture ministry. Routine tests for the virus on wild boars were introduced before Pyongyang reported the outbreak, the Ministry of Environment said in an Oct. 9 statement. Now, streams and soil near the border are also being tested.

The country has repeatedly asked Pyongyang to join a collective effort to fight the transmission, but its northern neighbor hasn’t responded.

“The fact that North Korea has reported the outbreak to an international organization suggests the situation is probably getting out of their hands,” said Ahn Chan-il, a former North Korean soldier who defected in 1979 and now heads the World Institute for North Korea Studies. “It’s an apocalypse in the making.”

(Updates number of cases in 2nd paragraph)

THREADS
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
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GeneChing

11-01-2019, 08:56 AM

Anyone who has done even a cursory study of Buddhism and Daoism in China knows the longstanding tradition of meat substitutes. China is way ahead of the world on this one.

The challenges of selling mock meat to China (https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3034773/challenges-selling-mock-meat-china)
Firms trying to break into the market have to be aware that alternatives are far from new; mock meat has been part of the culinary tradition for 1,400 years and the nation already has numerous players with a wide range of products
SCMP Editorial
Published: 9:30pm, 27 Oct, 2019

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/d8/images/methode/2019/10/27/fe3dcbc2-990b-11e9-b82d-cb52a89d5dff_image_hires_203721.jpg?itok=fcURLLwZ&v=1572179848
A pressing reason China may be a prime market for the alternative meat products would also seem to lie in the African swine fever outbreak that, since last year, has decimated the nation’s pork stocks. Photo: AFP

China is a prime market for the alternative meat phenomenon sweeping the West. The nation ticks all the right boxes – plant-based options help ensure food security, are environmentally friendly and, as a result of the way industry trends have moved, are hi-tech. Three years ago, in an effort to ward off health problems such as cancers, obesity and diabetes, Beijing also issued dietary guidelines recommending a halving of meat consumption. But a pressing reason would also seem to lie in the African swine fever outbreak that, since last year, has decimated the nation’s pork stocks.
A Hong Kong-based company is already making plans to sell its pork substitute products on the mainland. Prices of the white meat have skyrocketed as a result of the outbreak, which has forced the culling of, by some estimates, half of the country’s pigs. China is the world’s biggest pork consumer, accounting for 50 per cent of the global total. But the nation’s 1.4 billion people are lovers of all sorts of meat, last year consuming 86 million tonnes, more than any other country.
Demand increased by 14 per cent between 2017 and 2018, in keeping with global trends that the wealthier a society gets, the more it can afford meat. Companies that produce alternatives promote products as being plant-based, which sounds healthy, and eating vegetables is claimed to be better than livestock, which are sometimes raised inhumanely and cause 14.5 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. But firms trying to break into the Chinese market have to also be aware that alternatives are far from new; mock meat has been part of the culinary tradition for 1,400 years and the nation already has numerous players with a wide range of products. Nationwide sales of alternative meats are the biggest in the world.
The industry is not new to China, but science means there have been innovations that improve productivity and taste. That does not necessarily also mean healthier products, nor ones that are less expensive. But in a world with a fast-growing population and rising appetite for meat, with Asia and Africa the biggest growth areas, governments have to look to sustainability. Encouraging and welcoming competition and promoting plant-based meat alternatives makes good sense.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Selling mock meat to China is a challenge

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GeneChing

12-17-2019, 08:48 AM

‘Waiter, there’s excrement in my pig intestine,’ Chinese diner complains (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3042337/waiter-theres-excrement-my-pig-intestine-chinese-diner-complains)
Offered about US$70 in compensation after finding nasty surprise in rice noodles, the customer holds out for US$4,000
He challenges pork supplier’s manager to eat the offending material for the sum he was offered, after firm admits fault
Mandy Zuo
Published: 8:44pm, 16 Dec, 2019

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/d8/images/methode/2019/12/16/bdfa2028-1fe4-11ea-acfb-1fd6c5cf20a4_image_hires_205302.JPG?itok=cQLNz2Pi&v=1576500787
Wang discusses compensation with restaurant staff, who are shown a piece of the pig intestine containing excrement. Photo: Handout

A restaurant customer in northeastern China is demanding higher compensation after he was served pig intestine filled with excrement at a well-known chain then offered a sum he considered inadequate, according to news video app PearVideo.
The diner, identified only by his surname Wang, was enjoying a pot of rice noodles with pig intestine on Friday when he found a piece that was tougher to chew, he said.
He complained to staff at the restaurant, a branch of Axiang Rice Noodles in a mall in Changchun, Jilin province, and it was established that there were pieces of excrement in the meal.
An unnamed manager from the restaurant’s supplier told PearVideo in Sunday’s report that the supplier’s staff had failed to clean the intestine properly and that it would take full responsibility.
The manager telephoned Wang, offering to compensate him with an amount equivalent to 10 times the value of the dish, in line with consumer rights regulations – which would give Wang up to 500 yuan (US$72).
But Wang said he felt insulted by the offer and asked for 30,000 yuan (US$4,300). “I’d like to invite their boss to come over and have a try – I can pay him a few hundred yuan for every piece of excrement he eats,” Wang said.
The supplier, a small pork business in eastern China, said it could not afford the amount Wang was asking for, especially with business suffering after an African swine fever epidemic that has decimated China’s hog herd.
“He asked for 30,000 yuan, and later 20,000 yuan,” the manager said. “This year pork prices have been so high that we have barely made any profits. Under such circumstances, such a sum of compensation would be a big blow to a small business.”
The report included a clip of Wang’s earlier complaint to a restaurant manager, alongside a piece of pig intestine containing a dark filling.
“I want an apology,” Wang told PearVideo. “And if you do apologise, you should apologise to all consumers nationwide.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Man served with pig faeces wants more compensation

There's about a month left of the Year of the Pig, then on to the Year of the Rat (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71622-2020-Year-of-the-Rat). This thread has had a good run.

THREADS
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
Year of the Pig 2019 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71112-Year-of-the-Pig-2019)

GeneChing

01-20-2020, 09:08 AM

It was actually the ginseng angle of this story that caught my attention. I wonder where we are at with this now?

https://wpr-public.s3.amazonaws.com/wprorg/styles/resp_orig_custom_user_wide_1x/s3/field/image/ap_19288274010977.jpg?itok=9qt8Ojuq
In this Friday, Oct. 11, 2019, file photo, President Donald Trump watches as Chinese Vice Premier Liu He speaks to U.S. Trade representative Robert Lighthizer, right, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

Wisconsin Farmers Await Chinese Trade Deal Details On Ginseng, Pork, More (https://www.wpr.org/wisconsin-farmers-await-chinese-trade-deal-details-ginseng-pork-more)
'Phase One' Of A Trade Deal Was Announced Dec. 13, But So Far Few Details Are Known
By Rob Mentzer
Published: Tuesday, December 24, 2019, 6:20am
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Wisconsin farmers hope the "phase one" trade deal with China announced this month by President Donald Trump will mean increased exports in 2020.

But until all the details are out, some are holding off on celebrating an end to the trade war.

Escalating tariffs between the two nations have hurt exports of a number of Wisconsin-grown products, including pork, dairy products, cranberries and ginseng.

The Dec. 13 announcement from the two governments of an initial deal helped to lower tensions, but those affected by the tariffs warn that "phase one" could be a long way from a finished deal.

Will Hsu, president of Hsu's Ginseng Enterprises in Marathon County, analogized the situation to having an offer put in on a house. It marks the beginning of a new phase of negotiations, but can be a far cry from having completed a sale.

"Without knowing the exact details, it's hard to know whether or not you're actually going to close the deal," Hsu said.

United States ginseng is grown almost entirely in central Wisconsin, and the majority of the market for it is in China. The skyrocketing tariffs of the last 18 months have hit the industry especially hard, and have sent ginseng prices plunging from nearly $50 per pound of cultivated ginseng to closer to $20 per pound, Hsu said. That's because U.S. growers have to essentially deduct the added cost of Chinese tariffs from their own prices. Chinese consumers won't pay more for the root when Wisconsin ginseng is already a premium product there.

Wisconsin's ginseng industry accounts for more than $30 million in revenues per year.

Pork producers are also disproportionately affected by the tariffs. China is the world's largest consumer and importer of pork products.

But Wisconsin farmers now face a 72 percent tariff on pork sales in China, said Keri Retallick, executive vice president of the Wisconsin Pork Association. That's wiped out their competitive advantage in the export market.

"We need to do whatever we can to get (Wisconsin) pork back to the Chinese population," Retallick said.

Wisconsin is the largest U.S. producer of cranberries, which saw a steep decline in exports to China amid high tariffs. The dairy industry was affected, too, though milk prices have recently begun to rise for other reasons related to the global market.

Farmers of all of these products received some federal aid under a $28 billion federal aid program intended to compensate for losses related to the trade war. But in many cases available aid does not cover the losses, and to many farmers it would be an inferior option even if it did.

"Our producers would much rather have their markets opened up, and to be able to get their revenues directly from what they've produced and sold on the market," Retallick said.

Ginseng growers are eligible for federal aid payments under a formula that takes into account acreage and caps payments at $250,000. Hsu said that's too little to be all that significant for large growers, and aid payments haven't covered farmers' losses at virtually any scale.

"Every single farmer would rather have gotten the market value that we were getting a year or two ago," Hsu said. "I've heard of some guys getting $30,000, $40,000 or $50,000, but their loss is probably three to five times what they're actually getting back from the government."

The possibility of winding down the trade war was treated as good news by Retallick and Hsu. On Monday, China announced it would lower tariffs on hundreds of goods from other nations, a move understood as a response to domestic economic challenges.

Related Content
Related Links:
WisContext: Wisconsin Ag And Global Trade

THREADS
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
American ginseng (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?23912-American-ginseng)

GeneChing

08-04-2020, 10:15 AM

BUSINESS NEWS AUGUST 3, 2020 / 10:36 PM / UPDATED 12 HOURS AGO
China's hog futures set to make debut, but faces big challenges (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-futures-hogs-analysis-idUSKCN2500H3)
Emily Chow
6 MIN READ

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China’s long-awaited live hog futures contract is almost ready, offering a vital hedging tool for the world’s largest pork industry, which has been roiled by an African swine fever outbreak that devastated herds and sent pork prices soaring.

https://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20200804&t=2&i=1528250766&w=1200&r=LYNXNPEG73091
FILE PHOTO: An employee works next to signs showing pork prices at a market in Beijing, China December 8, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo

The country’s first live-animal physical-delivery contract has been planned for a decade, and is expected to be popular with domestic traders on the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE).

But complex delivery logistics, tight quality-control standards, a local lack of experience with futures contracts and a retail trading community that has wildly distorted other markets will be key challenges.

China typically slaughters about 700 million pigs annually and produces more than 50 million tonnes of pork – about half of global output. Hog and pork producers have traditionally relied on contracts that define volume and delivery requirements, but have little control over or insight into costs, especially in future months.

(GRAPHIC - China pork output vs world production: here)
https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/rlgvdnaobvo/China%20vs%20world%20output-USDA%20data.jpg
Reuters Graphic

That lack of cost control was made clear by the country’s widespread outbreaks of African swine fever, which since 2018 have nearly halved the pig herd and disrupted hog and pork supplies throughout the country.

Producers are now rebuilding the herd, which stands at 339.96 million head as of end-June, but average pork prices remain near record highs, making the launch of a transparent pricing and hedging tool a welcome development.

threads
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
swine flu (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53888-Best-remedy-for-Swine-Flu-H1N1)

GeneChing

04-01-2021, 09:27 AM

I thought this might be an April Fool's thing, but the date is the 29th and they don't observe April Fools in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Heritage Pork successfully develops a new high-quality pig breed named "Tai Chi Pigs" (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hong-kong-heritage-pork-successfully-061700317.html)
Mon, March 29, 2021, 11:17 PM·3 min read
HONG KONG, March 30, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Breeding pigs can be a relatively simple or complicated process. If the main ambition of a pig farm is to cut costs and increase the rate of breeding, there will be a sacrifice in quality. The goal of pig farm owners like John Lau Hon Kit, founder of Hong Kong Heritage Pork, is to breed high quality pigs using modern technology and special processes. This way, they can produce pork that meets the stringent requirements of Hong Kong consumers when it comes to taste, texture, and healthiness.

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/P2B9oCXpUhZHCc9j0yIuQQ--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTMyNi4wNjI1O2NmPX dlYnA-/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/9dW2z8tLOesZeiwExSfGYg--~B/aD0xODU7dz00MDA7YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b24-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/prnewswire.com/7057fd604d6d6c0bfac1cfc9b0fbf243
Hong Kong Heritage Pork
John Lau Hon Kit has combined the benefits Berkshire pigs, Danish Landrace pigs, and Spanish Durocs in his new breed of "Tai Chi Pigs". To do this, he specially imported high-quality specimens of each different pig breed into his Hong Kong pig farm. Although this increased costs, it made it far easier to control the purity and health of the pigs.

Hong Kong people have always loved their pork and have high standards for the pork they consume. With lots of fat, the pork is rich in taste but very unhealthy. On the other hand, pork with little fat is lacking in flavour but better for consumer's health. The trick is finding the right balance.

John Lau Hon Kit explains that Hong Kong Heritage Pork's breed of "Tai Chi Pigs" is the perfect balance between more fatty and more lean breeds. The meat is perfectly marbled with an even and modest distribution of fat, making it perfect for a wide range of culinary applications, including frying, steaming, and more.

But producing high-quality local pig breeds is not the only thing important to John Lau Hon Kit and Hong Kong Heritage Pork. To produce the highest quality pork possible, he places great care and effort into the feeding process.

The food used by Hong Kong Heritage Pork is a mix of premium corn imported from America and soybeans carefully selected by John Lau Hon Kit himself. This way, he is able to ensure that the pigs are fed a natural and nutritious mix certified by the European Union and suitable for feeding pigs growing in Hong Kong's climate. John Lau Hon Kit further brought in a feeding machine from Denmark that helps control and adjust the amount of feed given to the pigs, meaning they eat the right amount to grow in a healthy manner.

Furthermore, John Lau Hon Kit has specially selected Sheung Shui and Kam Tin as sites to open his pig farms. One of the reasons behind this is to allow his pigs to drink mineral-rich water from the nearby Kai Kung Leng mountain range. In order to ensure the health of the pigs, this mountain water is first disinfected and then filtered before being given to the pigs. John Lau Hon Kit will also regularly send water samples to a laboratory for further testing.

John Lau Hon Kit understands that the people of Hong Kong attach great importance to food safety. He regularly sends samples of his pork to well known third-party laboratories in Hong Kong and overseas to test for 18 types of antibiotics, 4 types of hormones, and several different types of heavy metals.

Hong Kong Heritage Pork has received a certificate of safety from the prestigious CASTCO testing centre, proving the pork from "Tai Chi Pigs" is safe for consumption – something which is also pledged by both John Lau Hon Kit and Hong Kong Heritage Pork.

For more information on John Lau Hon-kit and Hong Kong Heritage Pork, visit https://www.hkpork.com.

SOURCE Hong Kong Heritage Pork

threads
Tai-Chi-Pigs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72023-Tai-Chi-Pigs)
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)

highlypotion

04-08-2021, 05:56 PM

threads
Bacon!!!!!! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48509-Bacon!!!!!!)
swine flu (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53888-Best-remedy-for-Swine-Flu-H1N1)

I noticed that price of bacon is really increasing lately due to American Swine Fever(ASF).

GeneChing

10-20-2021, 09:42 AM

The US has a silent pig pandemic on its doorstep once again (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/17/the-us-has-a-silent-pig-pandemic-on-its-doorstep-once-again?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1)
As America readies to protect its pork industry, the Dominican Republic has been accused of using an outbreak of African Swine Fever to wipe out smaller producers

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6376bf61f13a6b0520af58b09dd4657d74e6acc7/0_320_3500_2099/master/3500.jpg
The Dominican Republic has announced the slaughter of tens of thousands of pigs after detecting outbreaks of African Swine Fever in pig farms across the country. Photograph: Ricardo Rojas/Reuters

Milli Legrain
@mlegrain
Sun 17 Oct 2021 05.00 EDT

A pandemic is silently sweeping across the globe – and it is not Covid-19. Since African Swine Fever (ASF) was confirmed in the Americas more than two months ago, the deadly pig disease is now on six continents and on the doorstep of the US.

Samples taken in the Dominican Republic tested positive for ASF in July and in neighbouring Haiti in September.

The virus does not affect humans or meat quality, but is an almost certain death sentence for pigs. The US pork industry – worth $23bn (£17bn) a year – is in a panic, Latin America is on alert, and pork producers in the Dominican Republic and Haiti are haunted by memories of the US-funded eradication of their entire pork population when ASF last hit more than 40 years ago.

Rigoberto Echavarría, a Dominican pig farmer, is devastated by the loss of his entire herd in August after staff sent by the Ministry of Agriculture followed an initial government directive to kill all pigs on small farms in affected hotspots and those within a 5km radius of the outbreak. The slaughter happened without prior testing for the virus.

Local reports say at least 1,000 pigs were killed that month in the province of Santiago Rodríguez, where Echavarría lives. But another farmer thinks the killings go beyond 10,000.

Social media accounts show local people throwing stones at a government vehicle loaded with dead pigs protected by armed members of the military.

Some small pork producers banded together to prevent the teams from reaching their farms.

But for Echavarría, it was too late. His farm is in the north-west of the Dominican Republic, 70km from the border with Haiti, where some suspect the disease entered the island. But, like many in his province, he believes his 130 pigs were healthy, and questions whether larger farms are being targeted by the government programme in the same way. He asks: “Can the pigs of my rich friend not also get sick?”

Speaking to the Guardian, an official said 73,000 pigs have been killed out of a pig population estimated at 1.8 million. The size of the farms affected has not been made public, but the numbers suggest the average farm had only 25 pigs.

Dr Rafael Nuñez Mieses, director of animal health at the Ministry of Agriculture, attributes the destruction of small farmers’ herds without prior testing for the virus to an initial “lack of equipment”. The strategy later changed.

Initially there was a policy to eliminate the small producers in order to contain the illness
Dr Francisco Israel Brito, Dominican Federation of Pork Producers
A government veterinarian in the province of Santiago Rodríguez, who asked to speak anonymously, says: “If the testing equipment had arrived earlier, we would not have had to sacrifice so many pigs.” He adds: “This is an area of small farms.”

But an unpublished technical report obtained by the Guardian reveals that the directive to kill pigs on small farms without prior testing was part of a government plan to control ASF, backed by the International Regional Organization for Agricultural Health and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

The document says: “Within a radius of 5 to 10 km of each outbreak, following the guidelines outlined in the emergency plan, all back yard farms should be sacrificed (not the industrial ones), independently of whether they are free of infection.” continued next post

GeneChing

10-20-2021, 09:43 AM

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b5a80d808bda5bbd6e557aab14be161328219e18/0_0_3500_2478/master/3500.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&
A farmer observes the remains of pigs that died of ASF, as the Dominican Republic announced the slaughter of tens of thousands of animals after detecting outbreaks across the country. Photograph: Ricardo Rojas/Reuters

Dr Francisco Israel Brito, president of the Dominican Federation of Pork Producers, confirms this. “Initially there was a policy to eliminate the small producers in order to contain the illness,” he says. “But then it became clear that, even then, the larger farms couldn’t escape the virus since it was all over the country.

“And the government realised that it was going to be very costly, so they decided to focus on the hotspot areas instead.”

Farmers have been compensated for the killings at a market rate of 120 Dominican pesos/kg (US$ 2.13), but missteps from the Dominican government have not helped to ease farmers’ mistrust.

The international community has been on alert for ASF for years. The Dominican Republic hosted an international conference in Punta Cana in 2018 where ASF was on the agenda. Samples, which had been taken as early as April, were not tested for ASF until July, giving the virus plenty of time to spread.

The Dominican government was quick to point the finger at small farmers on the border in June. But an official report published later by the World Organisation for Animal Health says the country’s first outbreak was in April in the centre of the country, where the majority of industrial-scale pork farms are based.

In a recent report, the international NGO Grain claims the Dominican government is taking advantage of the pig pandemic to eliminate smaller farms, following a similar pattern to that which it reported in China as a result of the ASF variant that has been ravaging states in the former Soviet Union since 2007 and which spread to Asia in 2018.

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/56487f593eef6a86d061b4e5afb0269b6597e069/0_0_3500_2438/master/3500.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&
A smallholder watches over her pigs. In the Dominican Republic many rural people keep pigs in their back yards for their own consumption. Photograph: Ricardo Rojas/Reuters

The Dominican government’s rhetoric has fed the narrative that smaller producers operate illegally and lack the hygiene and nutrition standards to keep the disease at bay.

In Latin America, traspatio – or back yard – pigs are traditionally reared a few at a time for self-consumption, tied to a pole at the back of a modest dwelling where they guzzle food scraps. In 1978, ASF allegedly reached the Dominican Republic via pork leftovers from a flight from Europe fed to a back yard pig outside the airport.

The Dominican government classifies all 28,000 small and medium farms with varying hygiene and nutrition standards as back yard farms. But the small and medium farmers the Guardian spoke to did not feed their pigs on food scraps or let them roam on landfill sites. And they were aware of disease transmission risks.

“Nobody works on this farm except me and one employee. Nobody else visits my farm,” says Echavarría.

Nuñez Mieses acknowledges that “not more than 100 farms” in the whole country meet biosecurity protocols “as described in the manual”, adding: “This disease is an opportunity for the pork industry to organise itself.”

Dr Francisco Israel Brito, president of Fedoporc, the Dominican federation of pork producers, confirms that the government was initially “protecting” the 400 or so industrial farms that produce 70% of all Dominican pork.

But he also acknowledges that, much like the coronavirus, ASF does not discriminate, saying: “It affects the most humble and the most powerful alike.”

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5b8ef42e12a39a31cc4c1c5cfa6e5a79e12dce72/0_0_3500_2561/master/3500.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&
Everyone hopes that a repeat of the 1979 US-sponsored eradication of pigs in the Dominican Republic won’t need to be repeated. Photograph: Ricardo Rojas/Reuters

The US recently announced $500m in funding to support activities related to combating ASF in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, but a US outbreak is not unthinkable. More than 2 million Dominicans live in the US and the Dominican Republic is a popular destination for American tourists. ASF travels well in cured meat in luggage as well as in uncooked pork scraps on boats and aeroplanes.

If the plan to contain the disease by focusing on small farmers fails in the Dominican Republic, then plan B, according to government sources who spoke to the Guardian, is to destroy the whole swine population, as in 1979, when a US-backed eradication took place, followed by one in Haiti in 1982. This would protect the US pork industry and generate a massive increase in the 27% of Dominican pork consumption that mainly comes from the US.

Paul G Rudenberg, a US veterinarian who was part of the USAID effort to introduce pigs from Iowa to Haiti in the mid 1980s, doubts an eradication effort would be politically viable today. He says: “It may have been necessary. But it wasn’t run in the manner that was conducive to the benefit of the small farmer. As a result, it wreaked social economic havoc on Haiti.”

A glimmer of hope lies in the recent development by the US of a potential candidate for a vaccine against ASF; 40 years later, it looks like Big Brother is again likely to call the shots.

As for the small and medium sized farmers in the Dominican Republic, more than anything, what they don’t want is for certain farmers to get preferential treatment due to their size or government contacts.

“As a pig farmer, I am never going to be in favour of eradication. But if they are going to slaughter some of them, they have to slaughter them all,” says Echavarría. Pig pandemic...

GeneChing

03-29-2022, 10:34 AM

California's controversial animal cruelty 'bacon law' heading to the Supreme Court (https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/California-pigs-bacon-bill-heads-to-Supreme-Court-17034385.php)
Andrew Chamings
March 28, 2022
https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/24/67/05/22245729/3/1200x0.jpg
The ballot measure sought to “prevent animal cruelty by phasing out extreme methods of farm animal confinement, which also threaten the health and safety of California consumers and increase the risk of food-borne illness.”
judith wagner/Getty Images

The United States Supreme Court said Monday it will review a challenge to a California law that forces pork producers to end “extreme methods” of confining pigs.

California's contentious 'bacon law', Proposition 12, sought to improve living conditions for farm animals in the state, with the restrictions largely targeting the production of pork and eggs.

Onlookers have characterized it as the strongest animal welfare law ever passed in the U.S. The ballot initiative — which was approved by nearly 63% of voters in 2018 — made metal enclosures that restrict pigs from turning around and battery cages that prevent hens from opening their wings illegal. The ballot measure sought to “prevent animal cruelty by phasing out extreme methods of farm animal confinement, which also threaten the health and safety of California consumers and increase the risk of food-borne illness.”

The law became effective on Jan 1, 2022, but the state is currently allowing the continued sale of pork processed under the old rules.

Meat industry trade groups warn that when the law is fully implemented it will fatten up supermarket bacon costs by 60% and lead to a meat shortage, while proponents say that's merely Big Meat squealing at increased costs.

Two agricultural associations challenging the law — the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation — say almost no farms satisfy those conditions. In their appeal they say the “massive costs of complying” with the law will “fall almost exclusively on out-of-state farmers” and that the costs will be passed on to consumers nationwide.

The case is expected to be argued after the court begins its new term in October.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Written By Andrew Chamings
SFGATE Deputy Managing Editor Andrew Chamings was formerly Senior Editor at The Bold Italic and has written for The Atlantic, Vice and McSweeney's.
Didn't even know about this and I'm Californian...

GeneChing

02-22-2023, 12:41 PM

Highly Intelligent and Possibly Invincible Super Pigs Are Invading America (https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a43010514/super-pig-invasion/)
Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

BY TIM NEWCOMB PUBLISHED: FEB 21, 2023
https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/superpig-1677004726.jpg?crop=1.00xw:1.00xh;0,0&resize=1200:*
Getty Images

A special breed of hybrid super pigs from Canada have started to travel south into the northern United States.
The pigs pose a threat to native wildlife and may prove tough to eradicate.
The spread of the pigs has only increased in recent years.

A hybrid breed of super pigs—a mix of a domestic pig and a wild boar—is running wild in Canada. And now they have their sights set on the United States.

Originally crossbred to help farmed pigs grow larger and tolerate the cold temperatures of Canada, a drop in the market about two decades ago led some farmers to let their hybrid pigs run free. Now they’re running very free, according to Field and Stream. The super pigs are coming south, likely heading to Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Michigan.

The problem? The super pigs are proving hard to eradicate.

MORE FROM POPULAR MECHANICS
How Footballs Are Made

“That they can survive in such a cold climate is one of the big surprises of this issue,” Ryan Brook, leader of the University of Saskatchewan’s Canadian Wild Pig Research Project, tells Field and Stream.

The cold-hardiness of the hybrid pigs means they survive well. That means other native species don’t. Brook elaborates:

“Wild hogs feed on anything. They gobble up tons and tons of goslings and ducklings in the spring. They can take down a whitetail deer, even an adult. Originally, it was like ‘wow, this is something we can hunt.’ But it’s become clear that they’re threatening our whitetail deer, elk, and especially, waterfowl. Not to mention the crop damage. The downsides outweigh any benefit wild hogs may have as a huntable species.”

The super pigs have already traversed across the international border, dipping into at least North Dakota. So, expect an even greater occurrence as the hybrid population only grows. Like on public transit, if you see something, say something. The Squeal on Pigs website makes that even easier.

The super pigs have become adept at fending off recreational hunters, sometimes with entire sounders (the term for a group of pigs, generally led by mature sows) turning nocturnal to avoid the hunting. Other times the sounders will disperse, making them harder to locate, or change their patterns and retreat to forests or wetlands.

The best strategy at reigning in the super pigs has been employing the Judas Pig concept, which straps a GPS collar onto a pig to lead game officials to other pigs. Deception may be our only hope.

TIM NEWCOMB
Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.

The oddest thing about this story is that it's published in Popular Mechanics

GeneChing

02-21-2024, 04:52 PM

Pork flavored coffee is Starbucks’ newest China pitch (https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/20/business/china-starbucks-braised-pork-latte-intl-hnk/index.html)

By Jessie Yeung and Hassan Tayier, CNN
3 minute read
Published 2:38 AM EST, Tue February 20, 2024
Hong Kong
CNN
—
Who doesn’t like a little braised pork with their coffee?

Starbucks (SBUX) is betting on that unusual combination with a new drink released in China to mark the Lunar New Year. Dubbed the “Abundant Year Savory Latte,” the brand describes it as having an “interesting” flavor.

The drink combines Dongpo Braised Pork Flavor Sauce with espresso and steamed milk, with extra pork sauce and pork breast meat for garnish, according to the Starbucks delivery app.

The drink is priced at 68 yuan ($9.45), according to the app.

Photos of the drink, posted on Chinese social media platform Weibo by the Shanghai Starbucks Reserve Roastery, show a drizzle of dark red sauce atop the latte foam — with a square slice of pork on a skewer resting on the mug rim.

“Eating meat means prosperity in the coming year,” the roastery wrote on Weibo on February 5, days before the Lunar New Year began.

It added that the drink brings “traditional New Year customs into coffee,” and creates “unexpected savory and sweet flavors.” The latte is available at Starbucks Reserve stores across the country.

https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/untitled-1-20240220035812662.jpg?q=w_1110,c_fill/f_webp
The drinks cost about $9.45. Courtesy Starbucks

Lunar New Year is one of the biggest annual holidays in Asia. People across China travel back home during this period to celebrate with their families. Government data shows a total of 474 million trips were made within the mainland during this year’s travel season.

And while the foods served at New Year feasts vary by region, braised pork makes a frequent appearance. Named after the ancient poet, painter and statesman Su Dongpo, Dongpo rou is a dish made from braised pork belly, rock sugar, soy sauce, yellow wine and other seasonings.

The result is richly flavored and extremely tender cuts of pork that can easily be pried apart with chopsticks.

China is the biggest branded coffee shop market in the world, according to a report released in December by World Coffee Portal, having overtaken the United States last year.

Starbucks opened 785 outlets in the country in 2023, it said. China has long been one of the most important growth drivers for Starbucks, serving as its second biggest market worldwide and top overseas market.

But it’s got stiff competition, including from Luckin Coffee. The Chinese startup is the country’s biggest coffee chain with over 13,000 outlets, and offers drinks at a much lower price point than its American competitor.

The Starbucks pork latte has quickly gained traction on Chinese social media, with the topic viewed more than 476,000 times on Weibo by the time of publishing. Some users expressed curiosity, but others were skeptical, pointing to the high price point and questioning why they would drink the latte instead of eating real braised pork.

“For 67 yuan, I could eat a plate of braised pork then go to Luckin and drink two lattes,” one Weibo user wrote.

Another user quipped: “I would allow both (pork and coffee) to exist in my stomach at the same time, but not in my mouth at the same time.”

Jiupai News, a site affiliated with the state-run Changjiang Daily, reported that the drink had already sold out at one store in Wuhan, with customers saying the flavor was “unique” with a dense, smooth mouthfeel.

Starbucks also released other new flavors across China with a holiday theme in February, according to the Shanghai Reserve Roastery’s Weibo account, including a jujube macchiato inspired by new year’s rice cakes and an almond tofu macchiato.

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