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.
How can one tell?
The ribs and tenderloin I bought at Walmart didn't say one way or the other...
Trump’s fault!
8^)
I won't even buy dog treats from China.
See, you just want everyone to starve. Because if they print where our food comes from on labels that means people will starve!
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.
Yep exactly. That was it.
Sweet and sour pork ribs or pork fried rice...pork chow mein? It’s probably safe to eat, but why take the chance?
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
I guess this means we can expect a season of Swine Flu in our future.
I had swine flue in the 60s. Not fun.
“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.
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.
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.
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”.
Because they DO NOT KNOW it is from China, our betters in congress have repeatedly decided that COOL legislation (and you) are unworthy.
A vaccine should not be that difficult to create.
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.
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.
Going to be a hard long winter for them.
Or google is ‘disappearing’ the data.
They are trying VERY hard to suck up to China. VERY hard.
(Bing uses google searches)
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