>Big Bill, the largest hog ever recorded at 2,552 lb (1,157 kg), was a Poland China. Poland Chinas rank highest in U.S. pork production in pounds of hog per sow per year.
However, "Poland China" has nothing to do with China, and it is a US breed originating in Ohio.
Hogs grow quite large. Due to the shortage and the rising prices, farmers are letting their hogs grow larger, rather than marketing them at the usual weights. The meat may be a little fattier and not as tender in the older animal, although Chinese cusine may not care about that. But it's not like they are genetically engineering giant mutant pigs.
Are they more efficient though? Right now the average seems to be 4kg of grain per kg of pork[1]; if these large pigs require 5kg per 1kg of pork, then does them being bigger create any benefits in a shortage? Another question is growth rate - how fast are they growing? Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but their end size seems to be one of the less important factors in the mix when it comes to efficient pork production.
Your intuition is spot-on. Feed conversion efficiency drives profitability in the pork industry. The average live weight of US hogs at market is right around 280 lbs., not because the animals can't get larger than that, but because growing them beyond that size cuts into profits as efficiency drops.
I think pigs-as-big-as-polar-bears was just an opening hook to draw in eyeballs that would otherwise have skipped over yet another headline about African Swine Fever (ASF), which is covered in the second half of the article. ASF is the real meat of this story (pun intended, sorry) and the most significant factor currently impacting Asian pork production.
> ...their end size seems to be one of the less important factors in the mix when it comes to efficient pork production
Biological processes are often non-linear, so your intuition is probably correct. Here's an interesting paper[1] I found that looks at body size, energy metabolism, and lifespan.
Not an overly helpful comment, but this is loosely the premise behind the movie 'Okja' on Netflix. It was an interesting idea and made you see both sides. Weird it seems to be coming true.
I've traveled extensively, by motorbike, in the northern vietnam region bordering southern china. I started in the south of vietnam, which has pigs, dogs, cats, buffalo, chickens, ducks and everything else you can imagine just running around wild.
At some point as you travel north, you stop seeing pigs by the side of the road. You start to cross checkpoints where they spray your tires and places where they've put chemical (disinfectant) soaked hay on the roads that you're expected to drive over. You see signs everywhere warning people to spray things down.
1- There is a shortage of pork due to recent outbreaks
2- Large pigs have been breed in China.
The article then seems to insinuate that 2 is due to 1. But the article offers no stats or even any evidence that there is a causal effect.
Worse, the article seems to imply large pigs are a Chinese thing, when America holds the record for large hogs. Mostly large pigs are bread as male breeding pigs and to compete in local events (as therefore as part of a pig breeders boasting status). As far as I'm concerned, large pigs are not breed so much for consumption (though they will be consumed eventually)
Just very odd. Absolutely no journalism in that article. It just mentions two facts and draws fuzzy conclusions from it filled with innuendo. I'm not sure Bloomberg was ever a very quality source (as say the Washington Post or NYT), but I'm quite surprised at the trash rag style they are putting out lately. I also wonder why it's making the front page of /.
I think you are just slandering Bloomberg. The Chinese are growing pigs to become bigger because they are in need of pork, in sacrifice of taste. America’s record pigs are just for that, to get a record.
Size doesn't matter that much. Food-to-Meat conversion and the time to market normally matter more, in terms of profitability.
Also, the bigger the pigs get, the worse their health will be. Unhealthy pigs don't survive to market, convert their food less efficiently, get rejected at the slaughter house or their meat suffers in quality.
Next problem: You want similarly sized pigs for efficient slaughtering. Those "polar bears" won't fit into a standard line. But I guess China isn't that far into their agricultural industrialization yet. They are apparently also playing catch up in terms of food security and management of animal diseases.
The last two points are hampered by the general lack of transparency.
The meat-eating utilitarian vegetarian tries to pick meat from larger animals over smaller animals. Since you get more meat per unit of pain inflicted.
So Beef > Pork > Chicken. But if pigs can be bred to be as big as cows that helps a lot!
As someone who accidentally killed a small bull while working on a free range ranch, I can tell you that cows are surprisingly sentient and sensitive. The dead yearling's mother-cow howl-moo'ed the rest of the day and into the late evening. Her moos of agony still haunt me.
I defy you to find 1 chicken in 1000 that is capable of suffering this at this level.
>The meat-eating utilitarian vegetarian tries to pick meat from larger animals over smaller animals. Since you get more meat per unit of pain inflicted.
By that logic, the endgame would be an animal bred so it can't experience pain or suffering. After all, if it can't suffer, you can treat it however badly you want, right?
relevant Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri quote:
>My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?
It'd take a lot of crickets to make up one cow's worth of meat... but I don't think crickets experience anything like what we would call pain. So the correct answer may lie at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Most of the people that I've ever known who grew pigs only kept them for a year. The sow would have a litter in the spring, they feed up the piglets all summer, then slaughter them before winter. Pigs are pretty easy and efficient sources of protein grown like that - on a family-scale farm you have plenty of excess produce and food waste anyway.
Isn't the availability of water resources a great concern for polar bear size pigs? Pigs are known for their high water needs and I imagine XXXL pig would even need more.
Good question. I wonder how that scales? Do 3 100 pound pigs need more or less than a single 300 pound pig? What about food as well? Maybe even waste, is there less or more or the same coming out?
[+] [-] Merrill|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland_China
However, "Poland China" has nothing to do with China, and it is a US breed originating in Ohio.
Hogs grow quite large. Due to the shortage and the rising prices, farmers are letting their hogs grow larger, rather than marketing them at the usual weights. The meat may be a little fattier and not as tender in the older animal, although Chinese cusine may not care about that. But it's not like they are genetically engineering giant mutant pigs.
[+] [-] technotony|6 years ago|reply
No but they've gene edited pet dwarf pigs: https://www.nature.com/news/gene-edited-micropigs-to-be-sold...
[+] [-] jjcm|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/sep/02/era-of-chea...
[+] [-] erudition|6 years ago|reply
I think pigs-as-big-as-polar-bears was just an opening hook to draw in eyeballs that would otherwise have skipped over yet another headline about African Swine Fever (ASF), which is covered in the second half of the article. ASF is the real meat of this story (pun intended, sorry) and the most significant factor currently impacting Asian pork production.
[+] [-] dvt|6 years ago|reply
Biological processes are often non-linear, so your intuition is probably correct. Here's an interesting paper[1] I found that looks at body size, energy metabolism, and lifespan.
[1] https://jeb.biologists.org/content/208/9/1717
[+] [-] throw_xyzyz|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] axaxs|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ethbro|6 years ago|reply
That final scene... oof. (bawl)
[+] [-] latchkey|6 years ago|reply
At some point as you travel north, you stop seeing pigs by the side of the road. You start to cross checkpoints where they spray your tires and places where they've put chemical (disinfectant) soaked hay on the roads that you're expected to drive over. You see signs everywhere warning people to spray things down.
The swine flu is real.
[+] [-] 4ntonius8lock|6 years ago|reply
It has two facts:
1- There is a shortage of pork due to recent outbreaks
2- Large pigs have been breed in China.
The article then seems to insinuate that 2 is due to 1. But the article offers no stats or even any evidence that there is a causal effect.
Worse, the article seems to imply large pigs are a Chinese thing, when America holds the record for large hogs. Mostly large pigs are bread as male breeding pigs and to compete in local events (as therefore as part of a pig breeders boasting status). As far as I'm concerned, large pigs are not breed so much for consumption (though they will be consumed eventually)
Just very odd. Absolutely no journalism in that article. It just mentions two facts and draws fuzzy conclusions from it filled with innuendo. I'm not sure Bloomberg was ever a very quality source (as say the Washington Post or NYT), but I'm quite surprised at the trash rag style they are putting out lately. I also wonder why it's making the front page of /.
[+] [-] wyxuan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bayesian_horse|6 years ago|reply
Also, the bigger the pigs get, the worse their health will be. Unhealthy pigs don't survive to market, convert their food less efficiently, get rejected at the slaughter house or their meat suffers in quality.
Next problem: You want similarly sized pigs for efficient slaughtering. Those "polar bears" won't fit into a standard line. But I guess China isn't that far into their agricultural industrialization yet. They are apparently also playing catch up in terms of food security and management of animal diseases.
The last two points are hampered by the general lack of transparency.
[+] [-] colordrops|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] capsulecorp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JeanMarcS|6 years ago|reply
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt3967856/
[+] [-] fouc|6 years ago|reply
So Beef > Pork > Chicken. But if pigs can be bred to be as big as cows that helps a lot!
[+] [-] throwaway07Ju19|6 years ago|reply
I defy you to find 1 chicken in 1000 that is capable of suffering this at this level.
[+] [-] gruez|6 years ago|reply
By that logic, the endgame would be an animal bred so it can't experience pain or suffering. After all, if it can't suffer, you can treat it however badly you want, right?
relevant Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri quote:
>My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?
[+] [-] maxerickson|6 years ago|reply
I guess you could just strike that word without changing your meaning.
[+] [-] taneq|6 years ago|reply
That’s not what ‘vegetarian’ means.
[+] [-] ethbro|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] egdod|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] sbmthakur|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrower123|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] murat124|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blakesterz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pugworthy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonthrowaway28|6 years ago|reply
2. Antibiotic resistance in humans because of overuse in pigs (it doesn't have to be the same medication, only the same/similar pathway mechanism)
3. Pandemics (zillions of pigs kept in close proximity to each other and humans)
4. Climate change (2nd or 3rd most anthropogenic source)
5. Some other hippie reasons
6. More expensive than plant-based food
[+] [-] russdill|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sAbakumoff|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wvlia5|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaron695|6 years ago|reply
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