行业新闻

Hog heaven China builds pig hotels for better biosecurity

China is taking hog biosecurity to new levels — 13 stories in fact.

That’s the height of a building in southern China where more than 10,000 pigs are kept in a condominium-style complex, complete with restricted access, security cameras, in-house veterinary services and carefully prepared meals.

The seemingly luxurious conditions represent a state-of-the-art approach to biosecurity in which pigs — the main source of meat in China — are shielded from viruses, including the devastating African swine fever that wiped out half the nation’s hogs in the two years before the coronavirus pandemic emerged.

Nicknamed “hog hotels,” these gigantic vertical farms are being built by companies, including Muyuan Foods and New Hope Group, emulating the strict controls major suppliers in other countries have used to prevent outbreaks of the devastating disease.

China is copying best-practices from Europe and the U.S. to close its biosecurity gap, said Rupert Claxton, the U.K.-based meat director at consultant Gira, who has been providing advice to farmers and businesses for two decades. “In 20 years, it’s done what the Americans took probably 100 years to do,” he said.

Lethal African swine fever, which sickens pigs much like Ebola kills humans, caused a dramatic outbreak in China in 2018. Within a year, roughly half the nation’s herd of more than 400 million pigs had been wiped out — more than the entire annual output of the U.S. and Brazil combined — leading to rocketing prices and unprecedented imports.