{"id":31979,"date":"2014-05-19T09:14:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T09:14:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-05-14T18:44:28","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T18:44:28","slug":"6979-infographic-china-s-pig-footprint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/food\/6979-infographic-china-s-pig-footprint\/","title":{"rendered":"Infographic: China’s pig footprint"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meat invariably means pig in China, with pork accounting for 65% of the meat consumed in the country.<\/a><\/p>\n

And after last year’s<\/a> high-profile takeover of the US pig giant Smithfield by Shuanghui International, since renamed the WH Group, the largest pig producer in the world is now in China.<\/p>\n

Although the overall resource footprint of pork is, on average, lower than beef, it is still considerably higher than vegetarian alternatives.<\/p>\n

What is more, the long list of negative environmental impacts<\/a> is reaching crisis point. For example, pig production accounts for 42% of nitrogen and 90% of phosphorus flows into the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

More generally, livestock is now the main source of both soil and water pollution, according to data released by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection<\/a> in January.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(click on the image to see an enlarged version)<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\nThe pig industry – along with the agri-food sector as a whole  – is big business<\/a> in China today. Companies such as the WH Group and New Hope, China’s largest producer of animal feed, are major employers and given generous state support.<\/p>\n

However, as the graphic produced by the US-based Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum<\/a> reveals, the costs of rising meat and intensive pig production can no longer be ignored.<\/p>\n

High-profile environmentalists such as Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Environmental and Public Affairs, say China should turn its back on its booming meat<\/a> sector and encourage more sustainable levels of pork consumption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The environmental impact of China’s pork industry is becoming too large to ignore<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1021,"featured_media":57239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[763],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"country":[],"class_list":["post-31979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nInfographic: China's pig footprint | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The environmental impact of China's pork industry is becoming too large to ignore\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/food\/6979-infographic-china-s-pig-footprint\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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