This is a survey article about Chinese native pigs, and many times, we are sad in the face of the extinction of a species, and the disappearance of local pig breeds in China is also an ecological disaster, but it is often ignored by us.
Text | Fu Yongjun
1
Disappearing "back to the pot meat"
Friend Haitao is a Hunan native, at a party, I personally fried the back pot meat, let him taste for a long time, after every party I can not escape this back pot meat.
Sichuan people love hui pot meat no less than mahjong. As early as 2008, there were media reports that in the selection of Sichuan people's favorite 12 Sichuan dishes, Hui pot meat ranked first. In Chengdu, almost all large and small banquets, there will be the shadow of the back pot meat.
Once a friend asked me, what is the best way to eat back to the pot meat?
I told him: Pure back-to-pot meat, we may never get a chance to eat it again.
2
China that has disappeared on the tip of the tongue,
It is a territory of species extinction.
The most suitable pig breed in Sichuan to make hui pot meat, the Chenghua pig, is on the verge of extinction.
This native pig breed in Chengdu with black hair, thick head and neck and short limbs, has a fatter meat and a high content of fat in the muscle, so the meat made of the pot is soft and delicious, the meat is thick, fat and not greasy.
Chenghua pigs, once known as the proverb "every family has black hair pigs", spread throughout the Chengdu Plain, due to the long growth cycle and high fat rate, as of May 2013, only about 100 heads remained, raised in a seed farm in Chengdu.
These local pig breeds, which are about to disappear, are jokingly called "panda pigs", and according to the fourth national giant panda survey, the number of wild giant pandas is 1864, far more than these pigs.
Endangered Chenghua pig
It's a sad piece of news, that human choice is really important, that our consumption can make some species extinct, and some species can also be preserved.
Coincidentally, the disappearance of the Chenghua pig has led to the change of taste of the meat back to the pot, and this is not the only case.
◆ Dongpo meat, known as the "highest realm of eating meat", is said to have been born in the hands of Su Dongpo. Only the local pig breed called "Two Heads Wu" in Zhejiang is an authentic Dongpo meat. This kind of pig breed, which is called "two-headed wu" pig breed, is actually one of China's "four famous pigs", Jinhua pig, as early as 2006 by the Ministry of Agriculture into the "National Livestock and Poultry Breed Resources Protection List", becoming one of the national key protected local livestock and poultry breeds.
◆ At the Panama International Exposition in 1915, Sherwin-Williams Ham won the Gold Award, and since then it has become synonymous with Cloud Legs and is well-known at home and abroad. The Ujin pig, which is most suitable for making cloud legs, grows in the mountainous areas around the Wumeng Mountain and Jinsha River, and is also listed by the Ministry of Agriculture as a nationally cherished and protected variety; and the number of farmers' free range is also in danger.
Chinese food culture is vast and profound, and behind it is the diversity of ingredients and local characteristics. Looking back, we find that Wenchang chicken is no longer the Wenchang native chicken; Beijing roast duck is no longer the Beijing duck it once was. Those proud places are special, but they are gradually disappearing in the long river of time.
Sweeping away the fog of history, you will find that China on the tip of the tongue in the vertical dimension is actually a territory where varieties have disappeared en masse.
And that's what happened to my generation.
3
More than 9,000 years of domestic pigs,
The extinction took less than 30 years
China, the world's earliest pig breeding country, according to research at least 9,000 years of history. In the oracle bones excavated from the Yin Ruins, there are records of the word "豕" and the castrated pig.
In chinese characters, the original meaning of home is not that there are people in the house, but "there are pigs under the house", and only people with pigs call it home. From the Book of Poetry to the Qi Min Zhi Shu, from Zhuangzi to the Book of Wang Zhennong, China's native pigs play an important role in our farming civilization.
The meaning of "豕" is: pig, Chinese native pig
There are a total of more than 300 kinds of pigs in the world, China has 125 kinds of pig breeds, and there are 88 kinds of existing local pig breeds, which are widely distributed in the vast land of Our country, adapting to the local environment, transforming the local culture, and also getting along with local people day and night.
However, the second national survey of livestock and poultry genetic resources shows that about 85% of the 88 local pig breeds unique to China have dropped sharply, of which 31 breeds are endangered and endangered. In this five-year survey, 8 local pig breeds such as Hengjing pigs were not found, and 4 breeds such as Xiangcheng pigs were extinct.
The second national survey of livestock and poultry genetic resources
And all of this happened in less than 30 years. In 30 years, only one-third of our human life has gone, and one species is facing extinction; I don't know, how many species will our generation watch the extinction?
According to statistics, 75 species go extinct worldwide every day, and 3 species go extinct every hour. Stuart Pym, a well-known biologist at Duke University in the United States, believes that if species continue to decrease at this rate, by 2050, a quarter to half of the current species will be extinct or on the verge of extinction.
The extinction of rare animals is heart-wrenching, and the extinction of domestic animals that live day and night is also sad!
We found a local pig statistics on CNKI, and according to the data of that year's statistics, we made a table that everyone did not want to see:
Endangered chinese endemic pig breed
Later, we also inquired, after the vigorous protection of the Ministry of Agriculture, the situation of pig breeds in some places has improved, but to make these excellent old breeds sustainable, the biggest challenge is still us humans.
4
Remember the taste of childhood,
It's hard for our next generation to eat anymore.
Just last month, we organized an eco-farm field experience, went to Jintang Bean Farm to dig sweet potatoes, and at the noon table, everyone applauded a bowl of stew. Not so much cooking, all ingredients are ecologically organic, and there are no spices except salt. Many children at the table said that they had never eaten such fragrant meat, and in the end, even the broth was all soaked.
I tell you: This pork comes from the red-collar farm on Longquan Mountain, in addition to pure ecological food feeding, and the pig breed is the hybrid offspring of the Chenghua pig we mentioned earlier. Although there is only a quarter of the Chenghua pig blood, not the pure blood of the Chenghua pig, but the rich intermuscular fat content, still let us experience what is about to disappear the delicious.
The three-way hybridized Chenghua pigs that Han Jianbin ecologically breeds have rarely become Chinese pig bloodlines
Han Jianbin, the farmer of the red-collar farm, raised pigs earlier in Chengdu's ecological agriculture, but the high cost and the contrast between the market made it difficult for this humble Shandong han to scale down.
The embarrassment of red-collar farms is only a microcosm of China's local native pigs.
As we all know, the pork of the vast majority of local pigs in China is better than that of foreign pig breeds, and driven by interests, people seem to only care about the growth period and lean meat rate.
Since man is not conscious, the pig has no choice.
The 1990s was a watershed, with the invasion of imported pigs and the demise of local pigs in China at about the same time.
In just over a decade, Yorkshire pigs from the United Kingdom, long white pigs from Denmark, Duroc pigs from the United States (referred to as Du Growing), and their binary hybrid and ternary hybrid offspring have occupied almost all of China's pig market. The ultra-short growth cycle, lean meat rate of up to 65% or more, no farmers are willing to raise China's local native pigs anymore.
"No. 1 earth pig" once did a survey, before 1994, China's soil pig accounted for about 90% of the market share, and after that was squeezed by large commercial pigs, in 2007, the market share of China's soil pig did not exceed 2%.
One of the three foreign breeds of the long white pig
The Yanan black pig, which was once widely distributed in western Sichuan, together with the Rongchang pig, was rated as one of the 48 excellent pig breeds in China, and before and after the reform and opening up, the breeding scale reached millions, and now it is difficult to see the traces of the Yanan black pig.
Chen Qingming, a professor at China Agricultural University, appealed bitterly in an interview: "Like the extinction of all species, the extinction of pig breeds is also an ecological disaster." ”
Why doesn't pork have a meat flavor now?
After so many years of doing ecological farming, many people will often ask me this question. In addition to the secret change of breeds, there is another aspect: the change of breeding methods.
Swill pig comic
One day, we were driving, and a friend was sitting in the co-driver and suddenly asked me this question, and I didn't answer it, driving a long way along the Third Ring Road. It wasn't until I was about to leave the city that I saw a car carrying swill water, and I slowly approached the swill truck. About 500 meters away, the friend had already smelled the smell and immediately closed the car window.
I looked at her and said, "See why?" The friend suddenly realized.
Yes, we live in such a city, human beings waste a lot of food every day, and the wasted food is mainly pork. Swill water that is fermented for a day or two, even if it is 500 meters away, smells bad, but they are the main food source for pig farms outside the city.
It is difficult for us to ask to eat swill-grown pork every day, both to ensure safety, but also to ensure delicious, but also to be inexpensive, we are so difficult for pigs, pigs can not do ah!
Swill water contains too much meat of the same kind, and humans feed pigs swill water and eat themselves, in addition to the lack of humanitarianism, it is the accumulation of toxins from generation to generation.
5
It's not that Chinese too much to eat,
It's your waste that stimulates the risk of food safety.
In the face of this pursuit of faster and greater interests, we are crazy to ripen and grow.
Some people say that Chinese are many mouthfuls, and it is difficult to pursue safe food, but are we really not enough to eat?
We make up 19 percent of the world's population, but we produce about 70 percent of the world's freshwater products, 67 percent of vegetables, 51 percent of our pigs, 40 percent of our bulk fruits, and 21 percent of our food.
On average, each Chinese eats half a pig per year
China is the world's first pig country, according to statistics, in 2017, the national pig output of 688 million heads, even if it is a large country with a population of 1.4 billion, the average consumption on each of our heads, to consume 0.5 pigs per year.
In April 2018, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly released the "2018 China Urban Catering Food Waste Report", which made a very detailed survey of food consumption in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Lhasa. According to the report, the average waste rate of the catering industry is 12%, and the waste of lunch takeaway is as high as 1/3.
Many of our food is not what we eat, but what we waste.
We've fallen into a vicious circle: food is losing more and more taste – we're wasting more and more – food is being consumed more and more – pulling production higher and higher.
In order to meet the growing vanity of the masses, farmers have to change the breed of foreign pigs that are more suitable for consumer demand, and they also have to invest in and develop more feeds.
Even if we all switch to foreign pig breeds, humans still think that commercial pigs are bred for too long.
It's a race against time, and we're constantly breaking the record for commercial pigs: from 7 months to 6 months, 5 months, 4 months.
Although the growth time is getting shorter and shorter, the feed input seems to be increasing.
On average, each pig eats 139 kg of synthetic feed
According to statistics, China's feed production reached 284.655 million tons in 2017, of which pig feed output was 95.51 million tons; if calculated by the 688 million pigs produced in 2017, the average pig needs 139 kg of synthetic feed.
A standard commercial pig weighs about 110 kilograms, and the time is strictly controlled within 180 days, during which it will eat 139 kilograms of synthetic feed, dozens of truckloads of swill water, and a large amount of green feed.
Humans add a lot of hormones, pig blood, pig bones to animal feed, and even reports of adding sleeping pills, sedatives and other drugs.
6
30 years after the introduction of foreign pigs into China,
An African swine fever swept the country.
The extinction of China's native pig breeds may really be the beginning of an ecological catastrophe.
We have done so much to protect China's native pig breeds, not just to let you eat the taste of childhood, but a study on the preservation of good breed genes and breed diversity.
Compared with the imported pig breeds of du da growing up, China's native pigs have retained excellent genes that are more suitable for the local area through natural selection, in addition to the meat quality and taste far better than foreign pig breeds, they also have strong resistance to the environment and high resistance to viruses.
Map of the African swine fever outbreak as of November 2018
An Outbreak of African swine fever in August this year swept across the country and has now spread to 19 provinces.
This is not the first time in nature.
◆ People once frantically added animal carcasses to cattle feed, and finally at the end of the last century, the "mad cow disease" that swept the world broke out, and infected people would die painfully within a year, and there was no effective drug treatment.
◆ We searched for wild animals in large quantities, thinking about how to eat them, and finally in 2003, the "SARS virus" broke out, infecting nearly 10,000 people and killing hundreds of people in this catastrophe.
◆ We breed more and more chickens, avian influenza has finally spread from poultry to humans, from H1N1 to H7N9, emerging in an endless stream, and there is currently no vaccine against the H7N9 avian influenza virus at home and abroad.
Compared to such revenge, African swine fever is mild and only spreads among pigs, not humans.
The "SARS" that once shrouded the whole country is still vividly remembered
In fact, African swine fever has been raging in the West for nearly a hundred years, especially in Europe and the United States, the hometown of the Du-Da-Long line of imported pigs; it is only the first time this year that it has entered China.
If one day one of our species becomes the same subspecies, and that subspecies is defenseless against a particular virus, does that mean we will lose that species altogether?
If it were a pig that we had domesticated for more than 9,000 years, I wouldn't know how to explain it to my children.
When the last Galapagos tortoise disappeared, scientists around the world were in silence;
When the last white-tipped dolphin disappeared from the Yangtze River, all the media were reporting and discussing;
When the world's last Xiangcheng pig disappears, who in this world will know?
For food, human beings always stand on a high place and look down on sentient beings.
We are rarely willing to crouch down to understand and learn the origin and difference of an ingredient.
It used to be said that "I have never eaten pork and seen pigs run", but for many urban people, it has now become "I have never seen a pig run and eaten pork", and few of us trace our own diet, and it is even more difficult to understand the logic of agricultural production behind this.
7
"Foodies Save the Planet"
It's about each of us
In recent years, with the appeal of agricultural experts and the gradual attention of the authorities, it is gratifying that the current situation has improved.
During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, a total of 79 pig breeding farms and 3 gene banks were built in various parts of China, and 37 local pig breed protection areas were demarcated nationwide. Among them, there are 3 national conservation areas such as Ningxiang pigs, Rongchang pigs and Tibetan pigs, as well as 35 pig genetic resource breeding farms such as Taihu pigs, min pigs and Huanghuaihai black pigs.
Unlike other species protection, what is needed to protect local pig breeds is to "eat". Species protection at the national level is not "protection for the sake of protection", and how to realize commodity industrialization and market promotion is the key to protecting local pig breeds.
When the avalanche comes, no snowflake is innocent.
We always have to remember that "foodies can also save the planet".
Don't think back and start to miss the unforgettable taste of pork in our memories, but China's excellent local pig breeds have disappeared from our tables.
The sign standing in Zhuhai [Green Finger] Ecological Farm is always a wake-up call:
We are not bystanders, everyone is a participant.
Further reading:
< h1 toutiao-origin="h2" > pigs are in danger</h1>
Mobilize to defend the pigsty?
This is not a paragraph: some local pig breeds "can no longer find boars"; in the most critical years, the local Chenghua pigs in Sichuan were "only fifty or sixty heads", rarer than giant pandas; the 2008 national survey of livestock and poultry genetic resources showed that the number of local pig breeds in About 85% of China showed a downward trend, and 31 breeds were endangered and endangered. Some researchers have proposed methods such as frozen semen preservation, embryo preservation, and biotechnology seed preservation.
This article is reproduced from the WeChat public account "Bingdianweekly" (ID: bingdianweekly), the original article was first published on December 26, 2018, the title is "Pigs are in danger", does not represent the view of the Lookout think tank.
After living leisurely for more than 9,000 years, China's pigs will also begin to worry about their future.
From 1980 to 2000, the number of sows in Guangdong's Dahua White Pig dropped from 13,000 to several hundred.
The number of sows in Jinhua fell from nearly 250,000 in 1980 to more than 10,000 in 2007. In some places, pig breeds, and even "boars can no longer be found". Pig breeds such as the Parmesan pig, the Jiangkou radish pig, and the Guanzhuang flower pig were once endangered. Dingxian pigs, Longyou black pigs and narrow black pigs have become extinct.
In other words, these pigs are going to turn into rare animals if they are not careful.
Wang Lixian, who is engaged in pig genetics and breeding research at the Beijing Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, proposed in 2014 that "the selection and breeding of china's local pig breeds cannot be delayed." Chen Qingming, a professor at China Agricultural University, even warned in an interview that "the extinction of pig breeds is also an ecological disaster."
In order to defend the pigsty, the Pig Breeding Branch of the Chinese Society of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine took the lead in establishing a local pig breed resources protection and utilization cooperation group. The Animal Husbandry Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that "the state shall establish a system for the protection of livestock and poultry genetic resources, and people's governments at all levels shall take measures to strengthen the protection of livestock and poultry genetic resources".
In 2012, the central government's livestock and poultry breeding fund increased to 53.2 million yuan. Four years later, the then Ministry of Agriculture released the "13th Five-Year Plan for the Protection and Utilization of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources" data showing that there are a total of 90 local breeds of "native pigs" in China, including 42 national-level protected varieties, 32 provincial-level protected varieties, and 15 other varieties. These local pig breeds have been included in the National Inventory for the Protection of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources and implemented key protection.
But this crisis in the backyard of humanity should not be taken lightly. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations mentioned at a conference that about 22 percent of the world's livestock breeds are at risk of extinction. Curbing the decline in genetic diversity in livestock has become "an urgent task". Following the meeting, the organization implemented a regional project in the South-West Pacific to establish chicken and pig conservation centres in the Cook Islands, Fiji and Niue.
"Some populations don't necessarily have much value at the moment, but they are at stake in the future of animal genetic resources, which is like climate change." Curbing the loss of genetic diversity in livestock is related to the future of human development. "Un experts appealed at this meeting.
The choice of the market
The crisis in the pigsty first caused a shock at the dinner table.
Sichuan has a pot of meat, the northeast has a pig killing dish, and each of the eight major cuisines has a pork practice. Jinhua ham to use Jinhua pig, Yunnan roast suckling pig to use Yunnan small ear pig, classic Sichuan cuisine back to the pot meat should use Sichuan Chenghua pig.
Jiang Yanzhi, a professor at Sichuan Agricultural University and a special expert at Chengdu Breeding Farm, said that purebred Chenghua pigs can reach 3.5% in muscle fat content, while white pigs usually only 1%. The level of fat content in the muscle determines whether the pork is delicious or not.
However, the expert who specializes in breeding and breeding for Chenghua pigs told the China Youth Daily reporter that when the situation was most critical a few years ago, the local Chenghua pigs in Sichuan "only have fifty or sixty heads left", which is rarer than giant pandas.
Jiang Yanzhi remembers that thirty or forty years ago, most peasant households in Guanghan, Shifang, Deyang and other places in Sichuan still saw this kind of pig breed with black hair, wide waist, wide hips, and short limbs. Since the 1980s, improved pig breeds have been promoted nationwide, and fewer and fewer people have raised Chinese pigs.
Not only Chenghua pigs, but also varieties such as changbai pigs native to Denmark, Yorkshire pigs native to the United Kingdom, and Duroc pigs from the United States have successively entered China, these commercial pigs known as "Du Growing Up" and "Yang Sanyuan" have quickly occupied China's pork market and farms. At the same time, the number of sows of local breeds in China has decreased rapidly.
Local pigs "fight" and do not win foreign pigs, one is because of "fat", and the other is because of "slow". The lean meat rate of Chenghua pigs is only about 40%, while the lean meat rate of white pigs of foreign ancestry can reach 60%, and "everyone does not want to eat fat meat.". Moreover, in general, Chinese native pigs can only be fed for one year to get out of the pen, and foreign pigs can be fed for 6 months. "Actually, this is the choice of the market." Jiang Yanzhi sighed.
The earliest known evidence of Chinese pig breeding appears in the early cultural layer of the Guilin Jiaopiyan site in Guangxi, which dates back about 9,000 years. The pig bone traits unearthed there, which differ from those in the wild, are obviously changes brought about by artificial domestication. Six or seven thousand years ago, China began to raise pigs with wooden fences. By the Han Dynasty, there were already people who specialized in breeding pig mating.
In other words, the pigsty, which took thousands of years to tie, became "unrecognizable" in only a few decades.
The earth pig crisis is not only in China, but in the Yorkshire pig's home country of Britain, the most popular pig of the 1920s was originally the big black pig that originated in Cornwall in the 16th and 17th centuries. It has been exported to many European countries, and even crossed the ocean to many countries and regions such as Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Africa.
However, after the Second World War, the intensive indoor pig breeding model began to spread, and the number of large black pigs in britain, which was more suitable for outdoors, fell sharply. By the 1960s, the Big Black Pig had become one of the rarest local pig breeds. In 1973, the big black pig was even put on the list of critically endangered livestock.
Pigs facing a species crisis are not just domesticated domestic pigs, the situation of wild boars is even more hanging. The Visayan warthog, native to the Philippines, is currently critically endangered. Deforestation and farmland development have left these dark gray pigs less and less. The Chaco wild boar, which lives in South America, is on the verge of extinction due to the destruction of the ecological environment and the spread of diseases between livestock. A small pygmy pig that had fewer than 250 adult pigs in 1996.
Human development is compressing the living space of pigs little by little. After the reform and opening up, in order to meet the market demand, the domestic pig breed hybridization has been widely carried out. Ding Mei, who studies animal genetics, breeding and reproduction at Guizhou Agricultural Vocational College, mentioned in her paper that China has become "the country with the most foreign pig breeding resources".
On November 22, 2012, Huang Demin, a villager in Guanshan Village, Jinzhou Township, Ningxiang County, Hunan Province, drove his native pigs to Gaotai for diving exercises to improve the quality and taste of pork (file photo). Courtesy of Visual China
Genetic Defense War
In the breed war of pigs, Chinese native pigs originally had the advantage. They can be raw and delicious. As early as the ancient Roman era, Westerners introduced Chinese Guangdong pig breeds, cross-bred Tonkin pigs. In the early 18th century, the Cantonese pig breed introduced by the British was the ancestor of the later Yorkshire pig and the Bakshire pig. The Bozhong pig and the Chester white pig in the United States also have the pedigree of the Chinese native pig.
However, in 2008, when the second national survey of livestock and poultry genetic resources initiated by the then Ministry of Agriculture was completed, 8 local pig breeds such as Hengjing pigs could no longer be found, and 4 breeds such as Shenxian pigs and Xiangcheng pigs had been determined to be extinct. This statistical survey shows that about 85% of the local pig breeds in China have a downward trend in the number of groups, and 31 breeds are endangered and endangered.
In order to protect the dwindling number of local pig breeds in China, some researchers have proposed methods such as frozen semen preservation, embryo preservation, and biotechnology seed preservation. However, these methods are still in the experimental stage, the technology is not yet mature, and it is difficult to determine whether they can successfully preserve the seeds.
Compared with these methods that are still in the experimental stage, the more effective method is live seed preservation. The state and local governments have successively established breeding farms, casting nets to collect those increasingly rare local pigs and breeding pigs, and keeping them in captivity and protection.
The primary task of live breeding is to maintain the existing traits of the breeding pigs, and try not to change the existing appearance and production performance. As the population size expands, it can be cross-bred through "hybridization between different strains within the population" or "hybridization with exogenous pigs or other breeds of pigs" while retaining the original characteristics of local pigs.
In January 1996, the then Ministry of Agriculture approved the establishment of the "National Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources Management Committee", under which there was a professional committee for the approval of pig breeds. In August 2000, the Ministry of Agriculture published a list of 78 national breed resources protection, including 19 pig breed resources.
"Different stages have different stages of demand." Wang Lixian told the China Youth Daily China Youth Online reporter, "Once the introduction of foreign pigs was to solve the problem of insufficient meat to eat, and now the protection of native pigs is to solve the needs of taste and protect genetic diversity." ”
Jiang Yanzhi explained to reporters that the more diverse genes are, it is less likely to be "a pot end" when a certain disease strikes.
China's native pigs, which were raised by the people themselves in the countryside in the past, have been breeding for thousands of years in a very harsh and harsh natural environment, and have been handed down to the present, and their ability to resist the bad environment and disease resistance are stronger. The white pigs introduced now are not naturally hybridized, but breeds that have been bred "in a very good environment for a long time", and the resistance to stress is a little lower.
In addition, the genetic diversity of pigs has more significance for humans. The five-fingered mountain pig "has dozens of physiological indicators similar to the numerical values of human projects", and the Chongqing Rongchang pig has a congenital deafness gene that can be studied by scientists. Protecting the genes of local pigs is also protecting "an important gene pool that meets the unforeseen factors of the future." These genetic resources are unique and non-renewable.
During the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period, a total of 79 pig breeding farms and 3 gene banks were built in various parts of China, and 37 local pig breed protection areas were demarcated nationwide. These include three national protected areas, such as Ningxiang pigs, Rongchang pigs and Tibetan pigs, and 35 pig genetic resource breeding farms such as Taihu pigs, civil pigs and Huanghuaihai black pigs.
The conservation of Chenghua pigs has also received attention since 2013. Chengdu Breeding Farm, Qiongxia Jialin Ecological Farm and Sichuan Agricultural University Pig Genetics and Breeding R&D Team reached a cooperation to divide the Chenghua pig herd into two groups: breeding preservation and breeding. The goal of the breeding group is to let the Chenghua pigs maintain the current breed characteristics, expand the number of groups, control the degree of inbreeding, and ensure that the genetic genes are not lost. The goal of the breeding group is to improve the growth, meat production and reproductive performance of Chenghua pigs. In terms, it is to "rejuvenate" the entire population.
By the end of 2018, the basic breeding group of Chenghua pigs in Chengdu Breeding Farm and Qiongxia Jialin Ecological Farm had 16 boars, 8 families, and 150 sows; the core breeding group had 20 boars and 300 sows.
New hope
Sichuan province now produces about 50 million pigs a year, of which nearly 40 million go into the stomachs of locals. Jiang Yanzhi hopes that the proportion of native pigs can be higher, which is less than 2% now.
In the third week of December 2018, the average price of pork in the country was 21.01 yuan per kilogram, of which the price of ordinary pork was about 17 yuan per kilogram, and some native pork that took the high-end market route was packed in an elaborate box, and the price was often two to three times that of ordinary pork.
40 years ago, the market chose foreign pigs, and now the sharp tongue of Chinese diners has made another choice. More and more people are beginning to care about a question: why is pork not delicious now? The pursuit of delicious food has become the driving force for some diners to buy native pork.
This dynamic also brings hope to the Chinese native pig. In the whole of 2017, China's pork production was 53.4 million tons, and 688.61 million pigs were out of the barn. Although Chinese eats a lot of pork, in the world, it is not the most developed country in terms of quality and quantity of pigs. In the international market, China's pig inventory and pork production account for 50% of the world's total, but the number of pork exports, accounting for only 3% of the world's total pork exports. The price of exported pork is about 30% lower than that of pork exported by the United States.
The changes in the market made Jiang Yanzhi feel that the Chinese native pigs may have the strength to fight again. Chinese native pigs with better "meat quality characteristics and stress resistance" can one day become a breakthrough in improving the international competitiveness of the Chinese pork market.
Native pork, which is entering the high-end market, can use more than twice the unit price to make up for the disadvantage of slow production and high cost. "Keeping the cost at 1.2 to 1.5 times that of white pig farming, and the market price is more than twice that of it, it will certainly be profitable." Therefore, how to improve the comprehensive production performance of black pigs is the key. Jiang Yanzhi said.
Chengdu Breeding Farm is improving and cross-breeding the Chenghua pig breed. The researchers want to breed a new pig breed, which is as suitable as Chenghua pigs for making thick-skinned meat, and as lean as foreign pigs, growing fast.
The new breed being bred has not yet been named, but what makes Jiang Yanzhi happy is that this new hybrid breed can grow an average of 1 catty per day, which means that this pig can be out of the pen for up to 8 months, and the breeding cost is greatly reduced. At present, there are more than 1,000 breeding pigs of the new breed, which have been bred to the fourth generation. Generally speaking, by the fifth generation, the genetic characteristics will be stabilized. Jiang Yanzhi speculated that "it will probably take a year or two of research and development", and the market potential is very large.
In addition to these breeding farms, well-known e-commerce platforms have begun to raise pigs, and not long ago, they also developed the technology of "artificial intelligence pig raising" and "pig face recognition".
"Now the state and the industry are trying to protect the seeds, although there are various problems, but if you ignore the efforts of the industry, it is biased." Wang Ruinian, who develops a pigsty information management system at a technology company, said.
New technologies are constantly being installed in pigsty. More and more pig farms are beginning to use data management systems, feeding feed to machines, pigs pregnant according to B ultrasound, and even information such as how many times pigs have mated must be uploaded to the cloud.
As Wang Ruinian wrote in a self-introduction, in this era, pig breeding also needs product managers.
This article is reproduced from "Original Taste", the original title is "Pain | 30 years since the invasion of foreign pigs in China: an ecological disaster is breaking out, and the breeding of native pigs is on the verge of extinction! , does not represent the view of the Lookout Think Tank.
Since August 2018, african swine fever has occurred in many places in China. Recently, the person in charge of the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs answered reporters' questions on issues such as the prevention and control of African swine fever in accordance with the law.
reporter
What is the key to the prevention and control of African swine fever?
African swine fever is globally recognized as the "number one killer" of the pig industry, and once the virus is colonized, it is bound to cause immeasurable losses to the entire pig industry. The key to the prevention and control of African swine fever is to strictly follow the requirements of laws and regulations, effectively implement various prevention and control measures, and cannot relax and slack off in the slightest. In order to do a good job in the prevention and control of African swine fever, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has formulated a series of prevention and control policies and measures, including conventional prevention and control measures such as blockade, culling, harmless treatment, disinfection, etc., as well as special prevention and control requirements for the transmission characteristics of African swine fever, such as restricting transportation and prohibiting the feeding of kitchen residues to pigs.
In general, in the process of African swine fever prevention and control, all localities can conscientiously implement the responsibility of local government territorial management, departmental supervision and production operators' main responsibility for epidemic prevention, and make every effort to do a good job in the prevention and control of African swine fever, and some places have also innovated working methods and methods, forming good experiences and practices, laying a foundation for the prevention and control of African swine fever and maintaining the overall controllability of the epidemic. However, in the process of epidemic handling and epidemic source tracking, it was also found that individual personnel in some places did not follow the law and the implementation of the work was not effective, which affected the effectiveness of prevention and control work. In this regard, the relevant localities have investigated and dealt with a number of cases of violations of law and discipline, and effectively cracked down on illegal transportation and evasion of supervision. In September and November 2018, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs successively reported two batches of 12 typical cases of violations of laws and regulations in the prevention and control of African swine fever, and the national video conference on strengthening the prevention and control of African swine fever held on December 11 also reported on the supervision and accountability. Among them, there are farms (households) and pig traffickers who illegally transfer pigs and sell sick pigs to the same herd of pigs, causing the spread of the epidemic, there are official veterinarians who seriously derelict their duties, engage in favoritism and fraud, and issue certificates in violation of the law to facilitate the illegal transfer of pigs by relevant personnel, and there are also public officials whose responsibilities are insufficiently implemented, supervision is ineffective, and prevention and control work is delayed. Some have already caused serious consequences, and some have not caused serious consequences, but they have brought greater risks to the production of aquaculture and the prevention and control of the epidemic.
At present, we are in a critical period of prevention and control of the African swine fever epidemic, and continuing to increase the investigation and handling of illegal acts is conducive to urging all relevant entities to effectively enhance their legal awareness, perform their duties and obligations, and implement the responsibility of animal epidemic prevention. It should be said that the notification of typical cases has played a good role in publicity, education and deterrence.
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For producers and operation entities such as farmers, what circumstances should be investigated for legal responsibility?
For units and individuals engaged in pig breeding, slaughtering, management, transportation, disease monitoring, research, diagnosis and treatment, etc., the circumstances that should be investigated for legal responsibility mainly include the following aspects:
First, it is found that the animal has a group illness or death without reporting, and it is known that the pig breeding has an epidemic situation and still illegally sells the sick pig with the same group of pigs;
The second is to fail to comply with the relevant regulations on the control and extinguishing of animal diseases, and illegally use swill water and other kitchen residues that are explicitly prohibited to feed live pigs;
The third is to hide, transfer, or steal animals and animal products that have been isolated, sealed, or disposed of in accordance with law;
Fourth, evading quarantine supervision, privately purchasing or slaughtering sick and dead pigs or selling sick and dead pork;
Fifth, not truthfully providing information related to animal epidemic prevention activities, obstructing interference with the handling of the epidemic situation, hiding and destroying investigation evidence, and affecting the normal development of prevention and control work;
Sixth, it refuses animal health supervision agencies to conduct supervision and inspection, and refuses animal disease prevention and control agencies to monitor and test animal diseases;
Seventh, illegally collecting disease materials, carrying out experimental activities such as virus isolation and identification, or preparing "own seedlings";
Eighth, it causes a major animal epidemic, or there is a danger of causing a major animal epidemic, and the circumstances are serious;
The ninth is to privately set up pig slaughtering plants (farms) and engage in pig slaughtering, sales and other business activities, and the circumstances are serious.
In the above situation, the main violations are the "Animal Epidemic Prevention Law of the People's Republic of China", "Regulations on emergency response to major animal epidemics", "Regulations on the Administration of Pig Slaughter", "Regulations on the Administration of Veterinary Drugs", "Regulations on the Management of Biosecurity in Pathogenic Microbiology Laboratories" and other laws and regulations, and if they constitute a crime, they must also be investigated for criminal responsibility according to law.
Farmers should report animal epidemics in accordance with the law, in this regard, what measures does the state have to encourage farmers to take the initiative to report the epidemic situation?
Timely and proactive reporting of the epidemic situation plays a very important role in the effective handling and control of the epidemic. In the process of preventing, controlling and extinguishing animal diseases, the State compensates the owners of animals who have been forcibly culled. African swine fever has been included in the scope of compulsory culling subsidies in China, and the average subsidy for this compulsory culling of pigs is 1200 yuan / head. Therefore, farm farmers do not have to have too many concerns, they should take the initiative to report the epidemic situation in a timely manner, cooperate with relevant departments to deal with the epidemic, and reduce the risk of epidemic transmission. It should be noted that for farm households that do not report the epidemic situation in time or do not cooperate with the implementation of quarantine, isolation, culling and other prevention and control measures and cause the spread of the epidemic, the "Guiding Opinions on the Implementation of Financial Support Policies for animal disease prevention and control" jointly issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the General Office of the Ministry of Finance clearly stipulate that compulsory culling subsidies will not be given.
For State agents, what situations do they need to be held legally responsible?
As far as state functionaries are concerned, those who fail to perform their duties stipulated by laws and regulations in accordance with law should be investigated for responsibility. In the current prevention and control of African swine fever, the following situations should be seriously investigated: those who do not report the epidemic in time after discovery; although the report is reported, the follow-up prevention and control measures are ineffective, resulting in the spread of the epidemic.
What needs to be emphasized here is that those who have performed their animal epidemic prevention duties in accordance with the law and strictly implemented various work measures for animal epidemic prevention should not be held accountable. All localities must adhere to the correct orientation and avoid the expansion and extremization of accountability. In addition, according to the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law of the People's Republic of China, people's governments at all levels and relevant departments should give rewards to units and individuals who have made achievements and contributions to the prevention and control of African swine fever. Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs is collecting advanced examples of African swine fever prevention and control, and the selected advanced cases will be publicized and praised in an appropriate form to better play a typical demonstration and leading role.
In the next step, all localities should continue to increase the intensity of work, the African swine fever prevention and control policy requirements, relevant laws and regulations and prevention and control knowledge, timely inform the breeding, slaughtering, operation, transportation and other related management counterparts, so that policy publicity does not leave dead ends, so as to improve the awareness of the main responsibility of the majority of breeding producers. Typical illegal cases, African swine fever prevention and control technologies and emergency response measures should be conveyed to grass-roots animal epidemic prevention personnel and supervision and law enforcement personnel, so as to effectively enhance the prevention and control capabilities and the initiative and enthusiasm of prevention and control work.