China’s biggest pig producer, Muyuan Foods, is building what they believe is the world’s largest hog farm. They started construction back in March and reports indicate they began operating at least a portion of their 21 buildings back in September.
The mega pig farm is located near Nanyang, and will eventually house 84,000 sows and their pigs, which is thought to be roughly 10 times the size of a typical breeding facility here in the U.S. The early reports are they will try to produce more than +2 million pigs each year. Also interesting is the fact they say they will be employing fewer people per number of hogs and using a lot. more technology, i.e. intelligent feeding systems, manure cleaning robots, and infrared cameras to detect when pigs have a fever. I have to imagine with this many pigs in one place it could be both good and bad. If any type of disease or virus breaks out it could be a major problem.
I think this shows us that some of the larger companies are going to try and get even larger and more vertically integrated. I suspect they try to leverage technology to create a larger divide in competition and a more streamlined process. (Source: Reuters)
