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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChina's pork crisis is bigger than you think
BEIJING One doesnt appreciate the magnitude and importance of the role pork plays in the Chinese diet until you spend a bit of time here. The meat is so widely consumed, and such an integral part of so many beloved Chinese dishes, that one begins to take for granted that the default protein on menus is pork. Restaurants often feature only brief lists of chicken and beef dishes alongside their page-length selections of pork-based specialties.
So the African swine fever that has wiped out half the countrys herds has been especially excruciating for consumers, restaurateurs, farmers and the government. Domestic Chinese pork prices have skyrocketed. And the crisis has begun to affect global markets, both positively and negatively.
China is the worlds largest consumer and importer of pork, so much so that it has become the major influence on the price and availability of pork worldwide, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. National Pork Board.
But todays countrywide [African swine fever] debacle is not just creating shockwaves. Its an earthquake that is changing the very structure of the pork chain both inside and outside of China, the report said.
That structural change has meant a windfall for big meat producers in Brazil, Australia and Europe. American producers have benefited less, due to Chinese tariffs and the trade war.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/chinas-pork-crisis-is-bigger-than-you-think/ar-BBWBym5?li=BBnbfcN
defacto7
(13,485 posts)Is pork really that necessary to survival? I like bacon but c'mon. I can do without it.
abqtommy
(14,118 posts)China, 1,395,380,000
US , 327,352,000
I've been in China in the early 1990s. There were McDonalds and Pizza Huts there then but there's no
way they can take up the slack caused by the serious problem that this swine flu causes.
https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/usa?sc=XE23
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)The stuff that is in grocery stores in NOTHING like pork raised by a family, it's like being on Mars versus being on Earth, completely different meat. If you ever ate pork that was feed cooked food scraps and cooked vegetables, you will understand why some people are crazy about pork. China has gone from simpler raising farms to big factory farms, that is likely part of their problem, diseases spread quickly in the big farms.
Captain Zero
(6,805 posts)says the Kung Pao Pork Nazi...