China *loves* pork.
China’s obsession with pigs is so big That pigs even have their own skyscrapers.
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
Pork is a really big deal in China. It’s by far the most commonly eaten meat.
Which is why pork prices are closely watched as a sign of inflation.
When the Chinese Communist Party calls the West “capitalist pigs,” the Chinese people think,
“Mmmm… pigs.”
Pigs used to be a sign of prosperity because pork
was served only on special occasions. But now with industrialized farming,
pork has become a staple. And get this—China eats about half of the pork in the entire world.
America — home of the Wendy’s baconator — took that personally.
So it kind of makes sense that China’s been stockpiling a strategic pork reserve in case
something like a trade war, or a deadly virus happens. And it’s a good thing too,
because both of those things have happened in the past five years.
A swine flu from Africa in 2018 and 2019 killed almost half the country’s pigs,
either from the disease or being culled to prevent disease from spreading.
That pushed pork prices to record high levels in 2019.
Yes, 2019 was the year of the pig in more ways than one.
That must have been frustrating for China. Thank goodness *they’d* never
let a deadly virus escape from their country and wreak havoc on the world.
As you can imagine, this put a lot of pressure on the Chinese government to come up with a way to
increase pork production and bring down prices. Initially, China dipped into its national
pork reserve and started importing more pork from other countries.
But the Chinese Communist Party knew that its legitimacy would be destroyed
if China ran out of pork, so it needed a more long-term strategy to ensure a steady supply.
So what was the solution? Cracking down on food waste?
Sending Big Bad Wolves to labor camps?
Using rotten animal parts instead of lard?
Ok, that last one wasn’t the government, but that *is* apparently a thing in China.
No, the solution was actually to modernize the pig farming industry…
and by modernizing, I mean scaling the sector up.
Way up.
A lot of China’s pork used to come from small family
farms or even backyard pig styes like this one.
As opposed to indoor pig styes, like my roommate Carl’s bedroom.
But after the African Swine Flu destroyed half the country’s pigs,
the government saw these small farms as too risky because they couldn’t afford the
biosafety measures that large farms could. So it pushed big hog farms to get bigger – which
is probably the opposite of what it should have done, but I’ll get into that in a minute.
In 2019, the CCP stated that all government departments needed to support the pork industry.
“Beijing also said it would approve multistory farming,
which allowed pig farming to go vertical.”
So what was the result?
Besides cracking into a lot of piggy banks. Multi-story hog hotels!
Or as some call them, pig apartments…
…or giant towers of pigs. Or “pig palace”?! OK, that’s a bit of a stretch.
But there’s a reason this got shared in the “oddly terrifying”
subreddit. I think “pig prison” is probably a better name for it.
The point is, this pig prison is bad. And after the break,
I’ll tell you why these pork factories are actually worse than they look.
Welcome back. So Chinese companies
are building these massive pig farms inside what look like apartment towers, which besides being
an abomination to look at and I assume smell, has totally ruined pork belly towers for me.
The reason these pig towers have gotten so massive
is because China has something of a land shortage, and these giant
towers—while not all that humane—save farms from having to use a ton of land.
In China, old MacDonald doesn’t have a farm,
he has a towering monstrosity straight out of the Judge Dredd movie.
Take this little meat factory city that was built on Yaji Mountain in Southern China.
“The…complex, erected in an 11-acre clearing… is projected to house 30,000 sows by the end of
the year. For context, a large breeding farm in northern China would more typically house
8,000 sows on a 13-acre site.” So about four times the number of pigs
on the same amount of land. Very efficient, but also dystopian.
Which is kind of what the CCP aims for. But usually they only get the dystopian part.
The pigs are meant to live out their whole lives
in these cement blocks—which to some may seem like a great life for them:
they don’t ever have to worry about staying warm or finding water, food, or shelter.
Plus, since it’s made of cement, they don’t have to worry about Big Bad Wolves blowing it away.
But as a USDA scientist said to the Guardian,“At the end of the
day you couldn’t call this high welfare. There is not a lot of
room or environmental complexity here just to let pigs be pigs.”
I know it’s hard to believe that China’s animal rights aren’t that advanced yet,
but trust me, the CCP cares about its animals just as much as it cares about humans.
Maybe even more.
One of the reasons these pig farms got so big is because, like I mentioned, the government saw them
as a way to *protect* against swine flu. Locking them in a confined space and never
letting them leave all in the name of protecting against a virus? At least the CCP is consistent.
The logic goes that if the pigs have no interaction with wild animals, it’s easier
to protect them from contagious diseases. And the biosafety protocols at these mega
meat factories can be pretty strict. “Tom Gillespie, a U.S.-based swine
veterinarian . . . said he was even asked to remove his wedding band before entering
a [hog] facility in China”. Although fortunately he said he was able to keep wearing his glasses.
The New York Times visited one where “Visitors… are expected to shower,
disinfect and then dry themselves before wearing a full-body suit to prevent the spread of disease.”
If only safety protocols were followed as closely at a certain Chinese lab.
And that’s tame compared to what staff at some pig farms have to go through.
“Some mega farms have built staff dormitories to
try to limit workers’ contact with the ‘outside’—a strategy [that veterinarian
Tom] Gillespie said would be difficult to implement in other countries.”
Yeah. I don’t know about you, but living with pigs full time doesn’t sound like much of a life. Even
if they do have pool tables. Thanks, China. You found a way to make even billiards look dystopian.
But here’s the flip side to that biosafety coin. While it may be easier to protect pigs
from the outside world in these pig highrises, if something *does* get in, it’s going to wipe
out a lot more pigs in a lot less time. That’s why people in the pork industry
outside of China say they would “never dare” to build such a thing.
In fact, large US pork producers *spread out* their farms to reduce the risk of disease.
According to one agriculture expert, “U.S. hog farmers look at the pictures
of those farms in China, and they just scratch their heads and say,
‘We would never dare do that . . . It’s just too risky.”
A professor of veterinary medicine agreed, saying “‘The higher the density of animals,
the higher the risk…as well as [the] potential for mutation [of diseases].’”
Mutation? So is this how we wind up with
X-Pigs. I call dibs on pig Wolverine.
Wolverpig. Whatever. Bacon that keeps regenerating itself? Yuuuuuum.
And speaking of monstrosities to come out of China, China’s pig farming made
headlines again recently after a 26-story pig farm skyscraper opened in Hubei Province. With
a capacity to slaughter 1.2 million pigs a year, it’s the largest pig farm in the world.
According to The New York Times, “The pigs are monitored on high-definition
cameras by uniformed technicians in a NASA-like command center.”
Yup, China even spies on its pigs.
“A pig farm in name, the operation is more like a Foxconn factory for pigs with the precision
required of an iPhone production line. Even pig feces are measured, collected and repurposed.”
I wonder if they also have suicide nets on the sides
of the building. You know, for when pigs fly.
I’m sure to some that looks like a sign of China’s agricultural prowess. But to me it looks like the
start of “Chinese swine flu”. And considering how much they love pork, if that were to happen
China would take that personally.
So what do you think of China’s giant pig skyscrapers? Let us know in the comments below.
And remember, China Uncensored is able to keep making videos like this because of
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And as a thank you to these supporters, whom I call the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army,
I answer their questions at the end of episodes.
Today’s question comes from Ringleader on Patreon, who asks: If the CCP does start
to openly supply Russia with weapons and ammo, will the international community begin to enact
stricter sanctions and how bad would this hurt China's already collapsing economy?
Well Ringleader, I think it’s a safe bet that the West will
definitely impose sanctions on China if they supply Russia with weapons and ammo.
It wasn’t just the US warning China not to do this. Other NATO countries
did as well during the Munich Security Conference last week.
The US Treasury Secretary also warned China not to help Russia get around sanctions.
Yellen Calls for More Ukraine Support and Warns China Against Helping Russia
So if the Chinese Communist Party crosses the line
of giving weapons to Russia, there will be repercussions.
The CCP might not go that far, it’s hard to say. There hasn’t been proof
so far that they have given Russia weapons. And as of this recording,
all the US and other countries have said is that China is considering giving Russia weapons.
How badly would sanctions hurt China’s economy? It depends on what the sanctions
are and how strictly they’re enforced. But it could be a pretty big blow.
Which is a big reason I’m not sure the CCP would actually go that far.
Their number one goal is to remain in power,
and an unstable economy is bad news for them. The CCP always looks out for number one.
Thanks for your question and your support, Ringleader.
And thank you for watching. If you want to join the China Uncensored 50 Cent army,
head over to patreon.com/chinauncensored.
And help us expose the Chinese Communist Party. Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. See you next time.