Will China also infect Europe with its skyscraper pig farms?
Skyscraper farms that contain millions of pigs to ensure enough food for a population as large as China's. The present is already financed, among others, by the World Bank and which is also attractive to some European countries but at what price and with what risks? Here's what Report's investigation discovered
Markets with floors covered in blood where, despite Covid-19, live and freshly slaughtered animals still coexist and are sold, pig farms which to say are intensive is putting it mildly, workers forced to live inside them. It is the photograph taken by journalist Giulia Innocenzi for Report on Rai 3, whose cameras – the first in the world – filmed from inside the so-called skyscraper farms that are spreading like wildfire throughout China.
Created to counteract the spread of viruses and epidemics, according to Beijing, for experts it is instead an ecological bomb, financed among others by the World Bank. And some news raises fears that Europe may also be interested in building them.
But it doesn't end here. Innocenzi, from China – where swine fever broke out in 2018, exterminating more than 200 million pigs – continues his journey to Lombardy, one of the Italian regions most affected by the virus which has already caused the death of 40 thousand pigs, also killed through inadequate both for animal welfare and for the hygienic conditions of the farms.
INSIDE SKYSCRAPERS TO RAISE PIGS
A 26-storey building less than 100 kilometers from Wuhan, the symbol of the pandemic, built to raise pigs. Lots of pigs. The goal is to reach 1.2 million per year. But he's not the only one. In fact, Report 's investigation also managed to enter the largest one in the world, again in China, with 2.2 million pigs.
In the highest one in the world, the service shows that there are a floor with breeding sows, another with males, one for cubs, one dedicated to fattening and so on, as well as automated routes where the animals are moved with the elevator. To guarantee hygiene and safety, the managers assure, there are air conditioning, filtering systems and well-trained and monitored workers. There is one for every 6,000 pigs. They live on the farm and, as Innocenzi said, "they can only go out 4 days a month", while "to enter they have to take three showers, a day of quarantine and a test".
WHY CHINA IS BUILDING “PIG HOTELS”
They call it “smart farming” and it is an experiment that aims to ensure China's self-sufficiency and food security – two top priorities of the government. In fact, in the country, writes Domani , "pork represents 60-70% of the meat consumed by the Chinese: almost 700 million animals every year, half of the global pig population".
To feed 1.4 billion people, however, if skyscrapers save space by saving land, they still need space for farming in general, as well as for the food needed to feed the animals. However, the newspaper notes, China has "only 9% of the world's arable land" at its disposal, which requires it to import tons of food from other countries.
As reported by the article, in 2022 China "imported 146 million tons of food (mainly from the United States), recording a trade deficit of 143 million tons in this sector" and shortly "the agreement will be made official on the basis to which, over the next 12 years, Russia will supply China with 70 million tons of wheat and legumes, through the new land grain corridor."
As regards, however, cereals and legumes for feed, Stefano Liberti, author of The Lords of Food. Journey into the food industry that is destroying the planet , he told the newspaper that China imports "100 million tons of soybeans from South America and North America every year."
A MODEL THAT CAN INFECT THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY?
According to Report 's investigation, the hypothesis that the practices implemented by China could also reach Europe cannot be ruled out. Innocenzi's team, in fact, said that they managed to enter the skyscraper farms by posing as "a delegation of Italian entrepreneurs interested in importing the technology of skyscraper farms into Europe".
But “the disturbing thing – said the journalist – is that in the 26-storey farm the general manager told us that a few days earlier a Spanish delegation interested in this type of farm had visited” and “in the largest farm in the world, however, there had been a Dutch delegation”.
Furthermore, according to what was written by Domani , the "hyper-intensive and digitalized breeding model, powered by the mega plants built by these companies, is supported by national and foreign investors, including the International Finance Corporation" – an agency of the World Bank, like the better-known International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which has already financed projects of this type for approximately 132 million dollars.
POLLUTION AND PANDEMIC ALARM
As stated by the experts , the disastrous situation of skyscraper farms shown by the Report investigation then leads us to have to deal with both the levels of pollution caused by similar science fiction structures and the risk of the spread of new epidemics.
Swine fever, which is currently transmitted only between animals, has nevertheless arrived in Italy and has already done considerable damage, especially in the North, where the main farms for domestic and foreign production are concentrated. So far, 40,000 pigs have been killed and the techniques used, as Report has also shown, present various irregularities: from the abuse and approximation of electrocution on pigs (a practice which involves an electric discharge to kill them) to the lack of biosecurity, as in the case of sewage tanks without fences and therefore dangerous for the spread of the disease.
Reductions, among other things, carried out with public resources provided by the Lombardy region.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/la-cina-contagera-anche-leuropa-con-i-suoi-allevamenti-grattacielo-di-maiali/ on Tue, 07 Nov 2023 12:55:54 +0000.