More than half of the world’s pigs are in China. In 2012, farmers there produced more than 50 million metric tons of pork – five times the amount produced by the United States.
The growing industrialization of pig farming is putting small farmers out of business and it’s creating soil and water pollution.
The demand for grain to include in animal feed dramatically increased exports to China from South America and around the world.
Shefali Sharma, director of agricultural commodities and globalization at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, joins Here & Now’s Peter O’Dowd to look at what growing industrial pork production means for China and the world.
Guest
- Shefali Sharma, director of agricultural commodities and globalization at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.