On January 25th, China celebrates New Year, unlike the European calendar. The festivities are accompanied by numerous traditions, lavish celebrations and culinary highlights. Pork dishes are particularly indispensable.

Pigs & China. The swine fever that has been going on for months is threatening the celebrations. Now the country has again flooded the market with hundreds of tons of frozen pork from government stocks to meet the immense demand.

Swine fever, which is harmless to humans, is a viral disease that is highly contagious for pigs and causes the animals to die due to a high fever. When we talk about swine fever, we are actually talking about African swine fever from the virus family Asfarviridae. The disease occurs in Africa, Asia and also in Europe. The virus is particularly remarkable for its persistence; the virus survives even if the infected meat is frozen or cooked.

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The disease gained notoriety in Europe because it caused diplomatic tensions between Denmark and Germany when the former announced that they wanted to build a wild boar fence on the border with Germany to prevent infected wild boars from crossing from Germany to Denmark.

It should also be noted at this point that, despite heavy criticism from time to time, the European standards for meat and pig farming are so high that swine fever, similar to BSE, has never been able to grow into such a threat in Europe as it is currently in China.

Already in our article from November 13, 2019 “ Prices for calves very low! “We pointed out that China is an important player here and that the Chinese market needs a lot of pork in the short term.

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In the Land of Smiles, the problem was initially downplayed by state media, but the ongoing demand for pork caused major procurement problems and a price explosion.
Making matters worse is the fact that China is the largest producer and consumer of pork in the world. A resident of China eats the equivalent of 30 kilos per capita per year.

In the meantime, the price has risen by up to 40% and almost 40% of the animal population has been slaughtered.

From an environmental perspective, however, the swine fever crisis is an opportunity. Even the government in China has now admitted that the problem of swine fever can no longer be denied and is calling on companies and farmers to produce alternative products.

In addition to the long-term need - there is no end to the swine fever epidemic in sight - to find an alternative to the beloved pork, there is also the question of whether a general reduction in meat consumption could help to contain the disease more quickly.

Meat is taken for granted in China, and the enormous demand has caused pork production, which is sometimes carried out under questionable conditions, to grow completely uncontrollably.

Although pork stocks have been frozen in China since the 1970s and it is unknown what quantities are still in state reserves, China's leadership is becoming increasingly nervous about the issue.

In summary, it is particularly clear in the Chinese New Year to what extent the swine flu has now reached and that even a global big player like China does not seem to be able to get the crisis under control in the long term. On the other hand, the Chinese market is also slowly recognizing the need to provide alternative products and it will be exciting to see what innovations the Middle Kingdom will come up with when it comes to meat substitutes. Especially in times of crisis, Chinese industry proves that it can present technological solutions with incredible speed and precision in order to supply the huge market of consumers.

Sources:

Author: Alexander Herberstein; Article image pigs by Dirk Ott / Shutterstock.com


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