John Phipps: In China's High-Rise Hog Buildings, Where Does the Manure Go?

Several helpful viewers sent links to information about how the Chinese manage the manure from the multistory hog facilities they are building. So, to David Marshall and Eric Owens, please send your addresses.

You can read more about the man behind the idea for high-rise piggeries here. 

I read all the sources, from the academic studies to outside reporting and did not find any indication they have developed any magical system to handle the vast quantities of hog manure that come along with the news-making hog hotels. They have used two tactics that would not be practical in many other countries.

First, depopulate their hog farmers. Any farm below about 500 head could receive a bad-news letter to simply shut down. Most of terminations seem to be near rapidly growing cities. Compensation has been promised, but neither the rate nor speed are satisfactory for the farmers. That does seem familiar. My guess is Chinese officials are concentrating on improving manure processing at very large farms, and the manure problem is a great cover to consolidate of hogs onto much larger facilities. Currently about 30 percent of their hog production is from such small farms.

The second tactic is to build new farms away from people and rivers. In fact, they are moving production to forests and grasslands of the northeast and southwest. It would be like moving North Carolina’s massive hog industry to Maine or southern Utah. However, hog producers are understandably reluctant to move to the boonies. Logistics for feed and animals will be challenging also.  In addition, timber or desert soils certainly have not proven to be the answer to phosphate overloading or nitrogen leaching.

While there are ingenious plans for digesters and composters, not many have been put into action. Remodeling the world’s largest pork production model will take years, even decades. Perhaps their best solution is to simply outsource the whole problem. In essence they are doing that with the United States – buying more pork rather than feed to meet growing demand.

Just like we have outsourced our pollution problems from chemical, steel, and other industrial processes by buying finished products, the Chinese government can easily subsidize pork purchases if needed. They may also begin moving their hog production, producers, and processing to other countries in Asia and Africa. In short, I still have no idea how that hog hotel on the mountain gets rid of its waste products, but judging from meagre evidence on Chinese water pollution, the current answer is to ignore the problem.