The Chinese own Smithfield Farms now. Maybe they'll up production quotas for shipping to China.
1
It seems the world is imploding on its own greed, gluttony and cruelty. Nature and humanity everywhere are in crisis. This should be a wake up call. We can no longer support the farming of animals, and animal disease is just one of the compelling reasons why we must stop.
7
The rub is it seems none of us - Chinese or Americans - are wired for empathy. Our brains - via the deadly combinatioin of cleverness, greed and bloodlust - will lead us inexorably towards a die off of scale! Vegans feel for the pigs but not the billions of chickens and fish which are a critical link in organic farming. Bacon lovers meanwhile take the blustery realism approach and proudly pass on the climate catastrophe to their children. (Going vegan - or at least beefless - is without question the simplest way to reduce your carbon footprint.)
All this chatter as we gobble up more gasoline and electricity than ever and prepare for war with Iran. God bless America!
I had to laugh--"Hong Kong expressed shock about the culling operation and sympathy toward the slaughtered swine." Aren't they being raised to be slaughtered anyway? Now their deaths are in vain? Please.
1
Both my parents were born and raised on farms and the only animals their families raised to kill were the ones they ate themselves. Reading this story makes me sick to be a city dweller and the cause for the creation of such an inhuman and barbaric industry that makes that possible. When life on earth resumes for the second time I pray it never evolves past agrarian, for the sake of both man and pig.
5
Meat eating - a disgusting, immoral, and environmentally destructive habit.
8
And something that is perfectly natural !
1
Kinda makes people rethink our "naturally" hardwired preference for all things with the natural label slapped on it's face, don't you think?
I am looking very forward to laboratory meat.
1
To commentators assured that the ASF virus does not spread to humans, the 2018 Hurricane Florence in North Carolina had far-reaching devastation of another kind.
Although pig farming is different throughout the world, what is the foremost method of handling animal waste and/or carcasses?
On 091218, MERCY FOR ANIMALS reported “N.C. factory farms, holding more than 9 million pigs combined, produce about 10 billion pounds of liquid animal waste each year.”
On 091818, NOLA (New Orleans Local News) reported that Florence’s potential for destruction also includes increased risk for the environment and public health as torrential rains could overwhelm the pits where toxic waste from power plants is stored. Animal-manure lagoons are also at risk of flooding.
On 091818, USA Today reported “According to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) during the hurricane, 21 pig manure lagoons ‘over-topped,’ releasing feces and urine into the environment.
“The lagoons, each one built next to the more than 2,000 industrial-sized hog farms, pump animal waste, which is then treated with waste eating bacteria. The bacteria gives the lagoons a distinctive pink color.
“At least 89 more lagoons are at imminent risk of releasing animal waste, according to the DEQ. Excess nitrates that move from the water supplies can cause “blue baby syndrome” where nitrogen blocks the ability of red blood cells to carry enough oxygen, causing the baby’s skin to turn blue.”
4
How about some nice American pork? Oh. Oh... wait a minute. China is applying high tariffs against American pork, and do you know who is going to pay those tariffs? Why, the Chinese, of course. Suddenly, pork is scarce and expensive in China. Too bad!
How about some nice American soybeans? Oh. Oh... wait a minute...
Gotta go now. Mmm! Bacon!
1
What many people don't know is that they kill the pigs by dumping them into a ditch and burning them alive. If you don't believe me look on LiveLeak, it's been going on for more than a year.
8
Humans do just appalling things to other creatures and even themselves.
This is a shameful sight.
Just vulgar.
20
Dear Will,
The really appalling thing is, what's being done to these pigs right now, fighting an epidemic, is not really worse than what's done to them all the time, turning them into meat.
8
Thanks to swine fever there is a worldwide rising price for pork. President Trump is prolific with executive orders, so here is a sensible one. Order pig farmers to increase the national herd to eat up the soybeans and other fodder crops that would have been sold to China except for tariffs, and export the pork.
5
If Trump truly had his wits about him, now would be a perfect time to help American farmers by allowing the export of pork and soybeans to China.
5
It's very sad to see this and also to see the way these poor sentient beings who are smarter than our dogs and cats are treated and talked about. They are not commodities, they are feeling beings with desires of their own. I know, I've worked at farmed animal sanctuaries for years now and each of the pigs (and all the other farmed animals) we have saved have wonderful relationships, bonds and family lives when given the opportunity. Using terms like "hog" and talking about how markets are affected tends to desensitize humans to the real suffering going on in these industries. We don't need to do this. It's also unhealthy and bad for the environment. The future is plant-based and there are great alternative products to meat now, besides the good old fashioned beans, nuts, seeds, whole grains, veggies and fruits.
73
@Lori Pork is delicious and a great source of protein, especially when you raise the pigs yourself in a healthy environment with all the acorns, apples, grubs, and whey they could wish for. Anyone who loves and raises animals is saddened by a story like this. It is in fact possible to be an animal lover and a meat-eater.
15
@M. Grove - animal lovers by definition do not eat animals. You can raise them humanely, and that is more than most, but you can’t claim that you are an animal lover. Given the horrible death farm animals get and their confined lives. Also given that if you eat meat, you are responsible for an outsized, negative impetus for deforestation, habitat destruction and climate change.
11
@M. Grove Pig flesh is NOT a great source of protein. Plants are. Pork contains carcinogens and saturated fat, both causing disease in humans. Most pork is not grown by individuals, but contains antibiotics as well. Pig farms are a huge source of environmental damage.
But most of all, no matter what you are feeding them, you are killing beings at six months old who do not want to die. There is no humane slaughter. Would you call someone who raises a puppy to six months old and then kills and eats them an animal lover?
10
If the virus does not effect humans why are we slaughtering / culling them? Does it ruin the meat some how? Cargill has just announced that they are able to grow meat from cattle cells. They plan to launch in 3-5 years. This is the way we need to move if we are going to keep up with global demand. End the suffering of these poor farmed animals. Its disgusting how we treat them and then discard them like a piece of trash. Those animals are sentient beings that love their life as much as we do.
56
@Wendy Cargill is late to the game. The first lab grown meat was created many years ago now. A Dutch company made the first lab meat hamburger in (2013). There are several companies around the world doing the same.
9
@Wendy Most of the farmers affected are small-scale producers. I imagine that you would find a deep connection to the animals on the part of the farmers if you bothered to get to know any farmers.
4
@Wendy
Highly contagious and fatal for pigs. And let's be honest.. some % of the byproducts of the slaughter house end up back in the feed supply... particularly in low regulation countries as is common in Asia.
PLUS... there is ongoing concern that the virus may at some point mutate and jump species and begin infecting humans. So you want to limit exposure of sick pigs and humans (and a slaughterhouse is the ultimate mixing pot between man and beast. It has happened before.
18
Yet another reason to go vegan. The use of antibiotics in animal meat production is creating enormous health consequences in "super viruses" besides creating widespread pollution and greenhouse gasses.
66
@ClydeMallory
Just to be clear, antibiotics have no effect on viruses.
Over-use of antibiotics in animals AND humans results in super bacteria which can cause untreatable bacterial infections.
There is a very compelling reason to keep rampant viruses such as ASF in check - the possibility, however small, that the virus does make the jump to humans. Keeping the virus in check by culling AND properly disposing of remains lowers the probability.
the spread of the virus in China may be exacerbated by the practice of feeding table scraps to pigs. The virus may spread through this practice.
Note: China produces >2 times the amount of the entire EU and 5 times the amount of the US. The scale of the China market is difficult to grasp.
20
@ClydeMallory
I tried that vegan challenge. Every meal was depressing and bland and my blood sugar went nuts from all the carbs. It's okay for others, just wasn't my thing.
6
@Lim then you were probably doing it wrong. I am vegetarian and my food has more life and flavor than a meat based meal. I recommend doing more research.
22
Excellent photos by Lam Yik Fei.
2
My first job with USAID in 1978 was to manage the African Swine Fever eradication program in the Dominican Republic. The disease was introduced via garbage from an Iberia airlines flight fed to Dominican pigs. At the time the disease was present in Spain. At first it was highly virulent and rapidly spread killing most pigs it infected. Fear of it spreading to the US was the motive for the US government to finance the eradication of all pigs on the island and their replacement with disease free pigs from Iowa. It was a drastic more but it worked. I doubt if China and its neighbors can do the same thing. Pigs will have to be raised under almost laboratory isolated conditions to remain disease free. Should be a good opportunity for US pork producers to export to China - but not with this President in office!
1
@Brian I have always wondered what caused the outbreak and pig culling that Haitians still talk about to this day. They believed it was a conspiracy to introduce white pigs to the island after the local breed was completely wiped out.
1
This is a single but not the only example of why the US, Canada and Western Europe prohibit the importation of any and all animals and or meat from any and all parts of Asia.
10
Self described “enlightened” Westerners who are critical of the ways and diets of people in emerging economies, would best climb back from any morally superior high horse. It’s a complex world and simplistic moralisms are just that.
4
As if you needed another reason to removal animals from your diet. Just go vegan already!!
16
As far as I'm concerned, humanity can't destroy itself fast enough. The sooner people die off, the sooner animals will return and live in peace. They deserve to; we don't.
16
Lead by actions, not words!
3
@Carrie
Animals do not "live in peace." And many domestic animals would find survival with out human caretakers very challenging, although pigs seem to adapt to feral life very readily.
Pigs have similar cognitive development as a 2 year old human and yet people who consider themselves 'progressive' continue to inflict untold suffering on these individuals for the sake of flavor. Unfathomable.
31
@TraceyL
It is because they are delicious and abundant. I don't really care how smart it is. It it was smarter than us we would likely be on their dinner menu. If it isn't human; and it is abundant, nutritious and affordable...I am probably going to eat. I'd have no problem with murdering the intelligent meat sacks myself either.
5
Maybe it's time for all "humans" on this planet to consider giving up eating flesh, and switch to a plant-based diet, to save the planet and themselves.
24
@kladinvt you know what would save the planet? Eradication of capitalism. Big business, fashion, war machine... major pollution. I mostly eat vegan, but don't try to tell other people what to do. The USA is responsible for climate change for the most part.
5
So if the pork industry in China is on the ropes, are they importing more processed pork from the American pork companies that they own?
3
Take a good look at the picture and then think about where your food is sourced from.
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@j24 - My backyard and closet.
2
I haven't eaten meat in over 40 years because I refuse to contribute to animal suffering and murder. The faux meat products are healthier for you (cholesterol-free) and, more importantly, are humane because they do not contain animal products.
Please go vegetarian or vegan today!
37
@Joy O Even a plant-based diet relies on animal husbandry. Farming is a noble and difficult life. There are many terrible examples of large-scale agricultural practices but don’t hold the livelihoods of small farmers as being somehow morally inferior to yourself.
4
@M. Grove, what animal husbandry is involved in a vegan diet, exactly? I come from generations of farmers in North Dakota, and once going vegan for a multitude of reasons, have never looked back. Last I checked, none of my plant-based foods required animals but am curious what you think is involved.
18
@Joy O - I went vegan once. Never felt so run down in my entire life.
Yanking a living head of lettuce out of the ground is just as inhumane as eating a chicken. I am more than sure that the lettuce would prefer to be in the ground.
3
What a powerfully honest and upsetting photo to accompany this piece.
27
In reply to Elvis Chan's query: I can agree to this.
Basically this is unimportant. These pigs are domesticated animals, they won't go extinct, and once this infection burns itself out, in a year or two the numbers of pigs being raised for meat will be right back up to normal. People will have to eat less pork for awhile, but this isn't that much of a hardship. Compared to humanity driving a million species extinct, which we're working hard at accomplishing, this minor, short-term culling of domestic animals is meaningless.
5
@Dan Stackhouse
The unspeakable cruelty in the factory meat industry isn't "unimportant" or "meaningless" to anyone who's paying attention.
How can you expect humans to care about all the species we're driving to extinction when we so easily ignore the unspeakable suffering of sentient animals raised as food?
13
@Dan Stackhouse
No, these are sentient animals and their lives are not "meaningless" because you say so. Animals' lives matter to me, and their suffering matters to me, and they matter to other people as well, as evidenced by the other comments to this story.
The treatment of sentient beings as a "resource" is part and parcel of the extinction to which you refer. Unfortunately, many humans look at other life forms simply as commodities, and that is what got us into this mess in the first place.
11
Dear Randy and Suzanna,
My apologies but I think you both misunderstood me a bit. I wasn't saying the factory meat industry is unimportant, but that this particular outbreak of swine fever is comparatively unimportant. Compared to the extinction of a million species, it truly does not matter, just as a billion human lives would not matter in comparison. But the suffering going on does matter as much as all the other suffering that has always gone on, and will always go on. Life is suffering, after all.
The attitude of humans toward all other life on the planet, not just pigs, also matters, in that it's amplifying our driving species to extinction. But my comment was intended just to cover this particular swine fever outbreak.
4
We seem to struggle with capturing the harm that ASF can inflict on markets worldwide if not properly contained, including the big hits to adjacent global markets, like corn and soybean farmers. Moreover, it's a matter of time before it hits American soil. It's a much bigger issue than merely whether or not you eat meat - anyone with passing knowledge in how viruses "drift and shift" should be concerned. As long as we live with animals, their pandemics are our pandemics.
20
Life and death when designated a food animal for humans. Are we not disgusting? In the best of times for these earthlings, life is torment beyond comprehension. Earth is turning on us, not out of some divine intent, sadly, but plainly out of the consequences of idiotic human practices, cultures, and willful oblivion.
64
Pork is unhealthy compared to a lot of whole foods and plant based proteins. Transitioning our world away from animal proteins and toward plant based proteins (legumes and beans) is what we neEd to do like, yesterday. Im very sorry to hear about the pigs.
55
@Andres Galvez Even a plant-based diet is reliant on animal husbandry.
1
@M. Grove Really? Explain that one.
10
@kladinvt Your vegetables depend on manure to grow. Your almonds and blueberries and apples depend on beekeepers. You live in VT, an agricultural state with many small diversified farms, these things should be obvious.
2
if virus is that out of control china could be on the way to a major pork shortage. which could cause a major problems as Chinese consumers substitute other meats for pork or china tries find others sources of pork.
ramping up production of live stock takes longer and is tougher then ramping up production of plant based agriculture products.
3
Highly contagious, but doesn’t affect humans....yet.
Humans think they are in control of this situation, but the viruses are able to mutate and jump species faster than we can respond.
And whatever happens on the other side of the world will happen here, it’s only a matter of time.
25
We can hope that something this lethal and untreatable will migrate to humans. Pigs don't have nearly as much of an impact on the environment, but humans are incredibly destructive, incapable of controlling their birthrate, and desperately need to have their numbers trimmed. If we don't get a handy plague to cut down our teeming masses, then a million species will go extinct in our lifetimes.
6
I guess that with the tariffs on US pork they will be importing from Poland instead.
7
oh my god, that picture. There has to be a better way, a more respectful way...
32
@A
Sadly, there is no way to demonstrate what mass murder looks like. A more realistic method would be to imbed a short video of the slaughter so that all could witness the horror of these intelligent, sentient souls. News flash, there is no clever way to describe nor portray violent murder: this is the end of days for animals "used" for human consumption. Animal murder occurs in this country every day on a mass scale: it is sanitized by plastic wrap in a small tray at your grocery store-That is the true horror story in this country. An obvious and easy solution, stop purchasing and consuming violently murdered animals.
23
Since the virus doesn't affect people, why not eat, rather than dump, infected (or possibly infected) animals?
6
@Jonathan Katz
The problem is that the virus remains live in and on uncooked meat, so to control the spread that meat cannot be sold. It could be cooked, but the slaughter plants do not have the ability to cook that much meat. In addition we do not know the extent of their ability to test for the disease in the animal, especially if the exposure is during the time the animal was at the slaughter plant.
12
No info on what bio-medically this virus is, ie, can it re-assort with flu to infect humans? Or can it simply mutate and infect humans? More virus info please. What is Swine fever from a veterinarian/medical view please.
19
@ssamalin. Not a threat to human health. Very different than influenza.
4
@ssamalin The article clearly states it does not affect humans.
3