The Italian virologist Roberto Burioni is among the experts who highlight the epidemic risk of a record facility that can house 650,000 pigs. It is located in China and is a pig skyscraper. A 26-storey building capable of accommodating 650,000 animals for breeding when fully operational, with a slaughtering capacity of 1.2 million pigs a year. It has been called the largest pig farm in the world. But if it can be a convenience for those who breed to have the animals all together, experts point out that it can be a great risk for the development of viruses.
Newly built on the outskirts of Ezhou, a city in Hubei province, it began admitting its first animals last October, The Guardian reported in November.
However, the initiative immediately aroused the concerns of experts for an increased risk of animal epidemics that could result in a herd of this mammoth size. Concerns also shared by the Italian virologist Roberto Burioni: “From my point of view, a paradise for viruses,” writes the expert on Twitter. And he adds: “Where are you animal rights activists?”.
The professor of the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University of Milan also posted the photo of the two maxi buildings that house the record breeding farm, for a total area of 800 thousand square meters, tweeted by the Chinese consul general in Belfast, who defines it « profitable high-tech farm’. A 4 billion yuan operation. The company that launched it is Hubei Zhongxin Kaiwei Modern Farming, a newcomer in the field of pigs and livestock, and originally active in the cement sector.
In the pig factory the size of a skyscraper, they raise 1.2 million pigs a year for slaughter
Doubts were expressed by several environmental experts and One Health, who observed that large-scale intensive farming increases the likelihood of ever-larger disease outbreaks. “If a disease gets inside it can explode among animals like a fire,” warned Matthew Hayek, of New York University, quoted by the Guardian. An aspect on which my colleague Dirk Pfeiffer, of the City University of Hong Kong, also agreed. “The higher the animal density, the higher the risk of spreading and amplification of infectious pathogens, as well as the potential for mutation.”