I have blogged often against fatuous “Vegan Victory” celebrations and parades to remind everyone that while meat consumption is temporarily down in the US, it is growing at staggering rates on a global level (see, for instance here and here). Particularly, I have tried to warn people that the world’s most populous and rapidly modernizing nations — such as China, India, and Indonesia — continue to expand their economies, develop Western-capitalist social-economic models, enlarge their populations, and dramatically increase their production and consumption of meat.
China continues to lead the way in posing grave ecological threats to the world and slaughter ever-more animals for consumption. I have emphasized the ambiguity of China, which is that as animal advocacy grows, so too does meat consumption.
In a major new and foreboding development, on May 29, meat producer Shuanghui International bought Virginia-based Smithfield Foods for nearly $5 billion dollars, in what many consider to be the largest Chinese acquisition of a US corporation in history.
Smithfield Foods, founded in 1936, was a major meat producing corporation particularly of pork. The transaction was beneficial to both parties, for while pork consumption has declined in the US, it is steadily rising in China. The US slaughters 100 million hogs for food consumption annually, whereas China butchers 470 million hogs per year. Thus, in a classic case of demand stimulating supply, Smithfield Foods is now part of Shuanghui International. China — with a population of 1.6 billion compared to 300 million people living in the US — is the world’s leading producer and consumer of pork.
As if US meat production methods were ever safe, or there is a thing as safe pork or healthy meat, some members of Congress are voicing hypocritical health concerns voiced. “I have deep doubts, said Representative Rose DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, “about whether this merger best serves American consumers and urge federal regulators to put their concerns first.” But this is China, after all, and such “safety” concerns are not without merit: “Demand for U.S. meat in China has risen tenfold over the past decade, fueled in part by a series of embarrassing food safety scandals, from rat meat passed off as pork to thousands of pig carcasses floating on a river.Demand for U.S. meat in China has risen tenfold over the past decade, fueled in part by a series of embarrassing food safety scandals, from rat meat passed off as pork to thousands of pig carcasses floating on a river.”
Apart from underscoring the oxymoron of “safe” or “healthy” meat of any kind, the more important issues are not sickened consumers foolish enough to consume animal “products,” but rather the ethical issue of a growing global animal holocaust and the catastrophic environmental impact of factory farming and the global rise of agribusiness and appetites for flesh, especially in the large, rapidly modernizing nations such as China.
Despite foreign ownership, USA Today notes:
“Shuanghui has 13 facilities that produce more than 2.7 million tons of meat per year. Under the agreement, there will be no closures at Smithfield’s facilities and locations, including its Smithfield, Va., headquarters in the historic southeastern Virginia town of about 8,100 where it was founded in 1936, the companies said.
Smithfield’s existing management team will remain in place, and Shuanghui also will honor the collective bargaining agreements with Smithfield workers. The company has about 46,000 employees.
“This transaction preserves the same old Smithfield, only with more opportunities and new markets and new frontiers,” Smithfield CEO Larry Pope said in a conference call. “This is not a strategy to import Chinese pork into the United States … this is exporting America to the world.”
Sadly, this statement is true, and when US carnivorous culture influences global markets and massively populated nations such as China, it is the perfect storm for ecological collapse.
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Also see: “14 Facts About The Staggeringly Huge Chinese Pork Industry”
Well said. As part of China’s “Harmonious Society” policy meat long term contracts for meat are entered into across a vertical supply chain in order to keep a growing middle class complacent. China looks on this as social policy not merely “food security” and completely disregards the Bioethical concerns of such meat production on the environment.The vertical integration involves land grabs in Africa, Brazil and Burma to clearcut rainforests in order to grow soybeans to feed the pigs which kill all the native animals and displace subsistence and traditional farmers from their homes, a national “frozen meat reserve” which the PRC uses to stabilize supply and thereby prices and supply to consumers and now Smithfield which can only exist with government subsidies. The PRC is deliberately excluded from “free trade agreements” such as the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TTP) and EU-US Agreement (TTIP) but is getting in via the backdoor by means of purchasing Smithfield and other industries which export commodities whose demand is increasing. The quote Steve cites from Larry Pope hints at this subversion of US policy. Sales to Korea will be huge. Not to sound xenophobic because Smithfield is a prime polluter and villain no matter who owns it, but because of preferential laws and subsidies in the US, as a result of this merger the US is basically paying the Chinese to make a profit on the increased killing of pigs. I once studied economics at a top ranked business school and I have never encountered a case study where a nation such as the US in this example worked so hard to pollute and impoverish itself by subsidizing its competitor and its domestic polluters. the Smithfield and nearby slaughterhouses and CAFOs have essentially killed larger marine life in the Chesapeake Bay which is now a dead zone awash in red tides of algae and dinoflagellates. Although we all want an end to animal ag, we must also demand an end to meat subsidies and demand strict environmental laws and then we shall see if Smithfield can exist when it has to pay the true costs of operating.
Brilliant comment, John, thank you! This story is just the tip of the global capitalist and necrovorous culture and you filed in many details nicely.
The saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” meaning when people make great changes over here, someone is further worsening things over there, I believe. Because humans have conveniently set the bar very, very low, so any point of balance is always a very shameful place, and the impetus is to go ever lower, while still arrogantly and loudly proclaiming human greatness. The bar has got to be raised much, much higher, and we don’t do that by compromising with people such as the happy-organic-meat crowd. If most everyone went vegan, meat producers mostly would not exist, not even in China, but of course that’s obvious. PETA (even though they usually disappoint, to put it mildly) has put out a new video which says it all about pig “farming.” Hope you don’t mind my posting it here; this is not an endorsement of PETA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GQyv48pMiA
Thank you Laura!
The Chinese just want to emulate a western life style like they have seen it in countless Hollywood films and TV show. The glamorous dreamworld that western media corporations created and the global pop culture have destroyed indigenous civilizations and local traditions and poisoned the heart and souls of the worlds population, causing people to abandon their inherited ways of life in exchange of an completely unsustainable existence as global consumers.
This facts plus the images of Pigs, just break me, torment me…..so impotent to save them, change this “reality”, so frustrating. My only hope is that soon enough all the Pigs in China ( and everywhere) will develop such a lethal disease that a pandemia occurs among humans and kills them all Pig eaters ….Pigs will stop suffering ( they will all die) and humans might, just might get the “message”, (if there are any survivors) Pigs are key to spreading disease to humans,( as we ALL should know by now) holocaust conditions are perfect for incubating deadly diseases….. I see no other solution in the horizon.
Ironically the huge sales to Korea also hits close to home in a proposed cow-slaughtering plant in Nebraska where the largest portion of hiring will be done in the Korean community:
http://www.starherald.com/news/local_news/nearly-hear-beef-plant-criticisms-support/article_a7368688-c99c-11e2-ba4b-001a4bcf887a.html
And what about the chilling news that Australia will be crating cows to board on Boeings to ship to China?
http://www.theland.com.au/news/agriculture/livestock/cattle-general/cattle-exports-set-for-take-off/2659317.aspx
China is “growing their herd” alright… But who’s land and food will they use to feed them? It’s all just exploding so fast it’s mind-bending. But Dr. Best you’ve been waving this warning flag about globalization for quite some time and sadly no matter how dire the message is – There’s no heeding it.
Finally… Isn’t it really a kick in the pants for American carnists who will probably still be eating the controversial ractopamine-laced pig-flesh while China gets the advantage of having this drug banned from it’s own purchases:
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/big-pork-deal-comes-amid-friction-over-livestock-drug-6C10136355
Our economic policies and responsibilities to consumer concerns are a disgrace.
Fantastic comment and information, Bea, thank you for this! My understanding is that Chinese meat will still be laced with deadly chemical toxins, but the US is not a nation that cast shame and blame on any other nation for their treatment of animals and “food safety” standards!
Completely agree Liliana, I always envision someone to develop a toxin to enter the animals flesh, without harming the animal..well put John, explaining the economic sabotage that we commit, pretty sure profits go to someone in the 1%., I think that is a brilliant strategy to focus energies to stop the meat subsidies. Steve, great opening the conversation on this sickening and hellish subject that most of us feel we have the least control over, it feels like we live among monsters, we can only hope that this “oxymoron” will decrease the public’s appetite for flesh, I can only imagine that people will get sick, that the animal slaughtering will get much media attention, I somehow don’t agree with China’s visions of grandeur, of supplying the world meat consumption, I am hoping this will have the opposite repercussions??
Thanks Dominique, I’m afraid world trends and global capitalist market logic are not in our — humans, animals, and the earth — favor.
😦 I still hold out hope that the energy is shifting into the positive for us…
Oh I’m glad I didn’t overstep my bounds and hijack the topic…
Anyway as I know it China, Russia and most of the EU haven’t accepted the ractopamine poisons for quite some time… It just hasn’t been banned for use/sale in the U.S. Which makes it kind of curious now that Smithfield will be owned by China, producing on American soil but enforcing their own standards that are strangely “higher” than ours. It’s all very confusing.
I also have no idea how this changes “welfare” standards while the pigs are imprisoned or while they’re being killed. Since the pigs are “owned” by China can they be “processed” in any way even if it violates the joke of USDA guidelines? I have no idea…
And then there are the COOL mandates just put in place so a label of U.S./China pork ought to be something else for flesh-consumers to try to figure out! Good luck! So much easier and kinder to eat local fruits and vegetables instead.
Yet one more thing I can’t help but interject here – It’s a look at how China envisions the future communities in a place in Beijing called Eco-Valley. Israeli is also on board as an investor in this ‘Smart Agricultural City’: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/infinity-group-partners-with-cofco-to-establish-beijing-eco-valley-the-first-sino—israeli-smart-agricultural-city-205931721.html
And here’s what it looks like. http://www.cofco.com/en/about/20581.html
You’ll note that instead of being a sustainable model with plant based agriculture on one sector filtering through to the human population they’ve integrated “livestock”, slaughterhouses and meat in between the two. They had a perfect opportunity to create a truly visionary plan for a healthy, life affirming facility and the went and ruined it all by including the very harmful, wasteful, cruel, needless animal-consumption practices. In this instance for sure I have to agree that greed and gluttony will be what finally takes us down… via little sausages.
Thanks again, this is another bad omen
Hope~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fRNNzMZgrzs
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