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Swine Fever Is Killing Vast Numbers Of Pigs In China
NPR ^ | 08/15/2019

Posted on 08/15/2019 5:52:14 AM PDT by BenLurkin

An epidemic of African Swine Fever is sweeping through China's hog farms, and the effects are rippling across the globe, because China is a superpower of pork. Half of the world's pigs live in China — or at least they did before the epidemic began a year ago.

"Every day, we hear of more outbreaks," says Christine McCracken, a senior analyst at RaboResearch, which is affiliated with the global financial firm Rabobank.

McCracken and her colleagues now estimate that by the end of 2019, China's production of pork could be cut in half. "That's roughly 300 million to 350 million pigs lost in China, which is almost a quarter of the world's pork supply," she says. "It's a massive number." (This measures the reduction in pigs slaughtered annually, which is roughly twice the number of animals in China's swine herd at any one time.)

The estimate, McCracken says, is based on information from her company's clients in China, which include meat packers, companies that sell animal feed, and animal health experts.

African Swine Fever is not the same as "swine flu." This disease is harmless to humans. It can spread through contaminated pork products or the clothes of people working with infected pigs. It does not travel through the air, but it's long-lived and hard to get rid of — which Chinese farmers are learning the hard way.

"They've had a hard time repopulating herds," McCracken says. "It's hard to decontaminate a facility in a short amount of time. Generally, it takes at least six months, sometimes three years, to decontaminate a site."

Up to now, Chinese consumers still are finding enough pork to buy. McCracken says that's mainly because many farmers slaughtered their herds early, out of fear of infection. In the past month or so, however, supplies have started to run short, and pork prices are now rising sharply in China.

In fact, people around the world are now starting to feel the effects.

With fewer pigs, China is importing less soy meal to feed them. That alone has been enough to push down global prices for soybeans, which means less money for farmers in Brazil and the U.S.

The effect on soybean prices may turn out to be modest. According to a preliminary analysis by Amani Elobeid, an economist at Iowa State University, and Miguel Carriquiry, at the University of the Republic in Uruguay, a 30% cut in China's pork production could reduce the price of soy meal by 3 to 5%. In an email to NPR, however, they noted that the analysis "is VERY preliminary and should be used with caution."

The growing Chinese pork shortage is good news, though, for pork producers in the rest of the world: China is now starting to import more pork, driving up prices.

McCracken says the epidemic is still going strong. "It's really hard to see how this is going to end," she says. "Though at some point there will just be better, more 'biosecure' facilities that have less of a chance of getting the virus."

African Swine Fever is present in wild pigs in Europe. European pork producers have managed to protect their commercial herds from infection through careful precautions, preventing any potentially contaminated food or clothing from entering the facilities where pigs live.

Almost half the pigs in China, on the other hand, came from hundreds of thousands of small, backyard operations, which have been particularly hard-hit by the epidemic. If those farms can't protect their animals from infection, they may not survive.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Health/Medicine; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: africanswineflu; agriculture; animalhusbandry; asf; cambodia; china; dietandcuisine; falungong; hainan; hongkong; maga; pigs; swinefever; tradewar; uighurs
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To: entropy12
Avoid buying pork products from China!

How can one tell?

The ribs and tenderloin I bought at Walmart didn't say one way or the other...

21 posted on 08/15/2019 6:22:41 AM PDT by Alas Babylon! (The media is after us. Trump's just in the way.)
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To: entropy12; BenLurkin
Avoid buying pork products from China! I wouldn’t put past them to use those pigs.

Partner, you ain't lying!

We know now that the Chicoms have lost 50% of their pigs to the swine flu.

Now, they want to agree to a mutually agree trade policy. We know that President Trump will tell the Chinese to get their heads out of their posterior in kinder words, of course.

The way we see this is that the Chicoms have benefitted immensely ever since President Nixon met with the Chicom Leader Mao in 1972. The Chicoms were an impoverished nation in 1972 and now with all the technology they have stolen and cheated.

The know how and ingenuity of American High Tech companies, American companies not so High Tech, American scientists, and American Engineers have given the Chicoms the communist dominion over all the world that they have wanted since they started building up their armies, air force and naval forces. It is very obvious what the Chicoms are doing.

No POTUS has done more for the U.S. in seeing what the Chicoms are doing to the world than our current President Trump.

All we have to do is look at what the Chicoms are doing to Hong Kong!!!

We also need to scale back the amount of scientists and engineers coming into the U.S. to steal high tech and cheat to give this info to the Chicom government and give them everything they have learned in our Universities.

22 posted on 08/15/2019 6:23:03 AM PDT by TheConservativeTejano (God Bless Texas...)
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To: BenLurkin

Trump’s fault!

8^)


23 posted on 08/15/2019 6:24:53 AM PDT by airborne (I don't always scream at the TV but when I do it's hockey season!)
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To: null and void
Don't buy any food from China.

I won't even buy dog treats from China.

24 posted on 08/15/2019 6:39:25 AM PDT by Former Proud Canadian (Islam---At war with Western Civilization for 1400 years.)
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To: null and void

See, you just want everyone to starve. Because if they print where our food comes from on labels that means people will starve!


25 posted on 08/15/2019 6:41:23 AM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: null and void

And this is why their ‘boycott’ of our soy is a moot thing. They don’t need the soy right now anyways. And might not for a while...soy is what they feed their pigs.


26 posted on 08/15/2019 6:42:23 AM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: ConservativeMind

Yep exactly. That was it.


27 posted on 08/15/2019 6:42:36 AM PDT by V_TWIN
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To: luvbach1

Sweet and sour pork ribs or pork fried rice...pork chow mein? It’s probably safe to eat, but why take the chance?


28 posted on 08/15/2019 6:51:54 AM PDT by sanjuanbob
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To: BenLurkin

They had the same issue last year. Looks like they didn’t get a handle on it.

https://www.economist.com/china/2018/09/06/african-swine-flu-is-causing-alarm-in-china-and-beyond


29 posted on 08/15/2019 6:58:37 AM PDT by reed13k (For evil to triumph it is only necessary that good men do nothing)
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To: BenLurkin

I guess this means we can expect a season of Swine Flu in our future.
I had swine flue in the 60s. Not fun.


30 posted on 08/15/2019 7:00:04 AM PDT by BuffaloJack (Chivalry is not dead. It is a warriors code and only practiced by warriors.)
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To: entropy12

“Avoid buying pork products from China! I wouldn’t put past them to use those pigs.”

Why would anyone buy any meat product from China?
Wasn’t it just 1 or 2 years ago that Indian workers in Africa discovered that the canned pork they were getting from China was actually from aborted human fetuses? That caused a sh*t storm when it happened.


31 posted on 08/15/2019 7:04:20 AM PDT by BuffaloJack (Chivalry is not dead. It is a warriors code and only practiced by warriors.)
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To: luvbach1
You never will.

Congress does not want you to know where your food comes from.

That, and massive campaign donations from places like China is why COOL legislation will never pass as long as there is a foreign influenced Deep State.

32 posted on 08/15/2019 7:14:36 AM PDT by null and void (Heaven has an impenetrable wall, and a welcoming gate for those qualified, Hell is wide open.)
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To: Alas Babylon!
The ribs and tenderloin I bought at Walmart didn't say one way or the other...

Countries that are proud of their production label the source, from Argentine beef, to Chilean grapes to Turkish figs to New Zealand lamb.

Countries who are ashamed of their quality pressure congress to never pass COOL laws.

33 posted on 08/15/2019 7:19:29 AM PDT by null and void (Heaven has an impenetrable wall, and a welcoming gate for those qualified, Hell is wide open.)
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To: luvbach1

Oh, and BY LAW, chickens raised in America, can be processed in filthy self-inspected (no USDA inspectors allowed thankyouverymuch) Chinese processing plants can be labeled as “Product of USA”.


34 posted on 08/15/2019 7:23:38 AM PDT by null and void (Heaven has an impenetrable wall, and a welcoming gate for those qualified, Hell is wide open.)
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To: BuffaloJack
Why would anyone buy any meat product from China?

Because they DO NOT KNOW it is from China, our betters in congress have repeatedly decided that COOL legislation (and you) are unworthy.

35 posted on 08/15/2019 7:25:30 AM PDT by null and void (Heaven has an impenetrable wall, and a welcoming gate for those qualified, Hell is wide open.)
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To: BenLurkin

A vaccine should not be that difficult to create.


36 posted on 08/15/2019 7:56:09 AM PDT by JimRed ( TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: null and void

I just did a google and bing search. No direct hits on Chinese pork sold by Walmart in the USA on the phrase “Walmnart China Pork” in any combo. When I search “Where does Walmart get meat” and “what country does walmart meat come from” I get all kinds of returns about Walmart, but NEVER a direct answer.

I did find a forum where somebody said China bought Smithfield, which sells most pork products in Walmart, but there’s no reputable link saying so.

Someone is hiding the real answer, or the Internet doesn’t know, and I’m stumped as to why.


37 posted on 08/15/2019 7:59:20 AM PDT by Alas Babylon! (The media is after us. Trump's just in the way.)
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To: Alas Babylon!

After a while, I realized the truth.

The truth is plain in what you can see or NOT see.

Since I can find no information on the web if Walmart sells Chinese pork, the answer is:

They do. They just don’t want us (the consumer) to know.


38 posted on 08/15/2019 8:07:22 AM PDT by Alas Babylon! (The media is after us. Trump's just in the way.)
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To: BenLurkin

Going to be a hard long winter for them.


39 posted on 08/15/2019 8:09:41 AM PDT by Vaduz (women and children to be impacIQ of chimpsted the most.)
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To: Alas Babylon!

Or google is ‘disappearing’ the data.

They are trying VERY hard to suck up to China. VERY hard.

(Bing uses google searches)


40 posted on 08/15/2019 8:12:30 AM PDT by null and void (Heaven has an impenetrable wall, and a welcoming gate for those qualified, Hell is wide open.)
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