China threatens the world a new trouble – the growth of the global consumption of pork. Love this Chinese meat not only has a major impact on one of the world’s largest economies and global markets, but also changes the ecological system. Chinese pig will soon eat up more than half of the global harvest of forage – to increase the area of crops already harming the Amazon jungle.
History of Chinese pig can be considered a metaphor for the rapid economic development of the country. Following the liberalization of agriculture in the late 1970s, the level of consumption of pork in China rose nearly seven times. To date, the Chinese grow nearly 500 million pigs per year, which is half the world total. In fact, this phenomenon is much more than just a symbol.
Most of the Chinese history pork is considered a delicacy that is eaten only on major holidays.
For many centuries, the offering of the sacrifice of pigs (as well as the eating of pork) was an integral part of various holidays and ceremonies. James Watson, an anthropologist at Harvard University, says that even if the family was short of funds, the pigs were sold last. Almost every rural family contain at least one pig. This is partly explained by the fact that in the era of communism, these animals were regarded as something of a household waste recycling system – they ate that from which refused the other cattle. Even Mao praised these “fertilizer factory on four legs».
The meat of pigs has always been the foundation of Chinese cuisine – in the case are all part of the pig. Chef and food writer Fuchsia Dunlop said that the muzzle of pigs fed entirely on the table as a treat for gourmets, and brains are thick and soft texture like butter cream.
Before 1949 most Chinese received only 3% the annual volume of nutrients through the meat, and the beginning of the revolutionary movement to get it became more difficult. Tens of millions of people starved to death, came in the late 1950s – early 1960s, after the “Great Leap Forward”, and for several decades thereafter, Chinese peasants greased pig fat walky-talkies, to make vegetables even the smell of meat.
Until the early 1990s, the majority of the population lived on a vegetable diet.
Many people in modern China still remember the years of poverty and hunger . Not surprisingly, the meat-eating became a symbol of the transformation of China into a country of big cities. Old men who once starved, trying to feed her grandchildren everything that had been deprived of. And the first item in this list is pork.
Today, the average Chinese person consumes about 39 kg of pork per year (about a third of a pig). This is more than the average American (who usually prefers beef), and five times more than the same Chinese in 1979.
The most obvious way this trend is directly affect the pigs. Until the 1980s, the country had no large farms: 95% of Chinese pigs bred in small farms (sometimes less than five goals). According to Mindy Schneider of The Hague International Institute for Social Research, today the share of small producers account for only 20%. Pigs themselves also changed: 95% of all livestock breeds are foreign. In order to save their own species in China established a national gene bank and a network of nurseries. But the Chinese pig – not the only victims of popularity pork.
Love Chinese pork has serious implications for the economic and environmental situation in their country and around the world, warning magazine The Economist.
The demand for pork wave of Chinese Communist Party. Chinese eat pork so much that if we raise her prices, the prices for other products also rise. Accordingly, the Communist Party, it is important to make pork available product, to ensure the stability of the economy. In 2007, about 45 million Chinese pigs died from the disease so-called “blue ear”. Pork prices immediately soared, and the annual consumer price index (which in China is also called the “pig’s annual index of prices”) broke the record figure for 10 years. Among consumers started to panic, several people were injured in the crush and queues. The volume of imports doubled.
In response, the ruling party has created the world’s first reserve pork – partly live and partly frozen.
The principle is similar to any reserve fund – if the pork is too expensive, the Government goes on with pork market intervention, and if the price falls too low, then buys pork farmers, guaranteeing them the necessary level of income. In addition, farmers are offered grants, tax credits, low-interest loans and free vaccination of animals – all in order to promote their work and increase the number of pork on the tables of Chinese families. According to the London-based research center Chatham House, the amount of government subsidies for pig production in 2012 in China totaled $ 22 billion, or about $ 47 per animal.
Nevertheless, even the Communist Party can not control all aspects of the industry. This is because the demand for pork has grown so much that means to satisfy it have to look far beyond China.
The growing popularity of pork in China threatens to changes in the global ecosystem and already harming the Amazon jungle.
Chinese pigs are changing the environment in other countries. The Communist Party encourages the provision of own resources, and the majority of Chinese pigs really grown in China. However, for every kilogram of pork requires about 6 kg of food – usually corn or soybeans. Since water and land in the country is not enough for growing pigs are now used mainly imported products. Soon Chinese pigs will eat more than half of the global harvest of forage crops. In 2010, China imported more than 50% of global soybean crop, and the US Grains Council predicts that by 2022 the “Red Dragon” will have to import up to 32 million tons of grain crops – about a third of the current level of world grain trade.
All this has made China vulnerable to fluctuations in commodity prices. To smooth the impact of the volatility in the global market, the Chinese government has decided to buy land in other countries, which are now grown food – or even the pigs, who later sold on the domestic market at low prices.
China itself about these purchases not covered, but the Canadian International Institute for Sustainable Development has estimated that in developing countries was purchased about 5 million hectares of land.
Other research centers believe that the area can be even greater. When China’s largest pork producer, Shuanghui, in 2013 acquired the US company Smithfield Foods, the deal brought him and vast areas of land in the territory of the state of Missouri and Texas. And as the demand for pork continues to grow in the future, the Chinese pork empire will only increase in size.
Now in China a few reduce the consumption of meat – usually very rich people who care about their health (some even become vegetarians) but the surrounding consider this behavior bizarre. In most developed countries, the consumption of meat for a long time remained at the same level or reduced – but not in China. And forget about the eastern horoscope: here every year – the year of the pig.
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