Half-month talk reporter Zhao Jiulong Song Xiaodong
Recently, with the recovery of production capacity, pork prices have shown a slight downward trend, but they are still high compared to the same period of normal years. Driven by interests, speculators increased, and some illegal businessmen used online contacts and offline transactions to illegally transfer pigs across regions. Some sell sick pigs at low prices in the name of temporarily suspended farms; some sell so-called "sub-healthy pigs", buying low and selling high to earn the price difference.
Online low-price "promotion", illegal cross-region transfer of pigs
In the first half of this year, many African swine fever epidemics occurred in China. The investigation found that most of them were related to the illegal transfer of piglets and breeding pigs.
Since the beginning of April, Jiangsu Province has launched a special rectification action on illegal and illegal transfer of pigs. As of June 5, the province has investigated and dealt with 17 typical cases of violations of laws and regulations, many of which are online contact, offline transactions, and illegal transshipment cases.
Huang Ruihua, a professor at the College of Animal Science and Technology of Nanjing Agricultural University, has long been concerned about the pig breeding industry for graduate students. He introduced that since the end of last year, more and more illegal pig brokers have published information on selling pigs at significantly lower prices on the Internet. The phenomenon of illegally using the Internet to transfer pigs across regions is rampant, and the methods are more concealed and difficult to combat.
The Banyuetan reporter saw many "breeding farms" selling pigs on platforms such as Taobao, Xianyu, and Baidu Tieba. Some businesses claim that they sell sows, piglets, and breeding pigs for a long period of time. Prepayments ranging from RMB 50 to RMB 100 are collected online, and the final transaction is done by phone, WeChat or face-to-face interviews. Some merchants started "price-cutting promotions": "It's going to be demolished and there is no place to raise them, so they will sell them cheaply."
The reporter of Banyue Tan called a "breeding farm" in a certain eastern city to inquire about pig purchase and transportation. A female customer service staff received the call and said that the "company" was indeed selling pigs: "It can be delivered in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Anhui, and ear tags and quarantine certificates can also be obtained."
"Sub-healthy pigs" travel thousands of miles
The Banyuetan reporter's investigation found that some pig vendors called the sick and dead pigs in the same house as "sub-healthy pigs", and then they were trafficked and sold after purchasing them at low prices.
In March, piglets illegally transferred from other provinces to a pig farm in Hongyang Town, Mianchi County, Henan Province died abnormally, and were later diagnosed with an African swine fever epidemic. A local investigation found that a company in Shenze County that sold piglets was leased by Li Mouping and specialized in the business of selling "sub-healthy piglets".
Liu Junjian, a big pig farmer in Xincai County, Henan Province, said that the pig market has been improving recently, and speculators who don't have a pig farming foundation and want to enter and exit quickly have increased. Some people take the risk and sell "sub-healthy pigs", and a group of black intermediaries help unprofessional farmers go through various procedures and even make fakes.
At the same time, highway animal epidemic prevention supervision and inspection stations were removed in some places, and "sub-healthy pigs" traveled thousands of miles without supervision. At the end of March, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center confirmed that a batch of piglets transferred from Jiangsu illegally transferred from a farmer in Etuoke Banner, Ordos City, had an African swine fever epidemic. The batch of piglets was 200 and 92 died. The piglet-carrying car passed through six provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in Jiangsu, Shandong, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, and Inner Mongolia. It traveled more than 2,000 kilometers and did not encounter any inspection during nearly one day and two nights.
Wei Guihe, director of the Agriculture and Rural Bureau of Dafeng District, Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, introduced that the party involved, Guangming Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Technology Co., Ltd. self-examined and found that its subordinate livestock farms still had illegal sales of "clear shed pigs": "I don’t know where to go after the transaction. It's hard to say whether the'clearing pig' will flow to the dining table."
During the investigation, it was also discovered that the destination trading markets claimed by some pig vendors had been closed for several years. On April 11, law enforcement officers inspected under a road culvert and found 3 illegal pig transportation vehicles, a total of 17 pigs. The source was the pig trading market in Laiyang City, Shandong Province. The pig transporter said it was transported to Xiangyu Trading Market in Huaian City, Jiangsu Province. In fact, Xiangyu trading market has been closed for several years. The batch of live pigs had no quarantine certificate, no ear tags, and the transport vehicle had not been put on record. Among them, 3 samples tested positive for African swine fever.
Be alert to the superposition of African swine fever and new crown pneumonia
Experts believe that the current situation of African swine fever prevention and control is still severe, and we must be especially alert to the superimposed risks of African swine fever and new crown pneumonia.
Huang Ruihua said that with the promotion of favorable market conditions and policies, the replenishment of live pigs in various places has accelerated, and the movement of breeding pigs and piglets has increased. There is a phenomenon of long-distance transfers of slaughtered pigs from the main production area to the main sales area, which may increase the spread of African swine fever. risk.
Wei Baolei, chairman of Lianyungang City Liancheng Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd., said that my country's livestock and poultry farming has a large number of areas, small and medium-sized farmers have low feeding and management levels, and insufficient epidemic prevention capabilities. Each piglet that is regularly transported must be marked with an immunization ear tag, and can only be transported to the pig farm after passing the quarantine of the animal husbandry station. However, in some places, there are still behaviors such as "opening a permit across the mountain," false issuing, and reselling quarantine badges.
Shi Yong, director of the Major Animal Disease Prevention and Control Office of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Jiangsu Province, and other cadres called for strengthening online supervision and promulgating supervision measures for live pig online trading platforms as soon as possible to clarify the responsibilities of the supervision department and all parties. Market supervision and management, agriculture and rural areas and other departments jointly convened an administrative meeting on illegal online sales of live pigs, coordinated in a timely manner to close illegal online stores, and shielded false and untrue sales information.
Experts such as Huang Ruihua believe that highway checkpoints cannot be withdrawn, and programmatic epidemic prevention of large-scale farms cannot be loosened. The quarantine of piglets and breeding pigs must be strictly controlled across provinces. The official veterinary management must be strengthened, quarantine certificate issuance should be standardized, and false issuance of licenses, and quarantine badges and signs must be resold strictly.
Experts also suggested that the entire chain of informatization supervision should be strengthened, and the grid management module of the smart motion supervision system should be developed in order to realize the informatization supervision of all pig farmers. (Published in "Ban Yue Tan" 2020, Issue 13)