“China’s billion dollar pig plan met with loathing by Argentinians” – 14 August 2020

…A government-sponsored plan to turbocharge Argentina’s hog industry with Chinese capital is generating unprecedented resistance among its supposed beneficiaries – the Argentinian general public. Nearly 400,000 people have signed petitions opposing the move…The plan to turn Argentina into one of China’s main pork suppliers is being sold to the public by authorities as a $3.5bn (£2.7bn) investment that will generate $2.5bn in annual pork exports and provide 9,500 new jobs. China hopes that South American pork can make up for its bruising losses after the recent spread of African swine fever (ASF) through its own hog herd, killing millions of animals. A survey of 1,500 Chinese pig farms last year showed that 55% had abandoned plans to raise pigs again because of the risk of future disease. Chinese and Argentinian officials are hammering out a framework to turn Argentina into a pork powerhouse with the installation of 25 hog farms of about 12,500 sows each to supply China’s growing appetite for pork… Pigs have a unique capacity to incubate viruses that can bounce between humans, birds and pigs, swapping genes in a process called “reassortment”, which is why hogs are considered potential “mixing vessels” for deadly future pandemics by some epidemiologists. Argentina’s authorities, however, are adamant no such risks exist. “We’ve had a number of meetings with small producers and environmental organisations; we’ve got nothing to hide,” said Jorge Neme, the foreign ministry’s international economic relations secretary who received the petition from Barruti last week, in a recent interview with the government newsagency Télam…“Generating thousands of new jobs may be tempting, but the truth is we don’t know what the societal, environmental and health costs for neighbouring districts and the population in general will be,” said Di Paola. But China’s proposal has been warmly welcomed by Argentina’s authorities, eager to rescue the country from its perennial economic woes and from the additional downturn brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. “We need to increase exports by $25bn a year,” foreign minister Felipe Solá, who is heading the negotiations with China, tweeted this week…