‘In the days of Noah,’ Increasing Genetic Corruption and Manipulation: A Chinese hog farmer is breeding giant polar-bear-size pigs, which weigh over 1,100 pounds, as the country contends with pork shortages.

Yahoo News. October 6, 2019

Not unlike the movie “Okja,” in which a company breeds massive pigs to maximize profits, some Chinese farmers are growing larger and larger hogs to keep up with pork shortages.

In Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi province, one farm owner is breeding pigs that weigh over 1,100 pounds, or 500 kilograms, Bloomberg reports — making them the size of polar bears. Such pigs can reportedly sell for more than 10,000 yuan, or $1,400, which is more than three times as high as the monthly average disposable income in the province.

Adult pigs can normally grow to a wide range of weights, usually from 300 to 700 pounds. The biggest domestic pig on record was Big Bill from Jackson, Tennessee, which weighed 2,552 pounds. Big Bill had to be put down before it could travel to the Chicago World Fair in 1933 because it broke a leg from sustaining all of its weight.

Most hugely oversize pigs do end up dying from health complications. In 2004, another massive hog named Ton Pig, bred in China, died from a lack of mobility because of its obesity. It weighed 1,984 pounds.

The giant pigs bred in Nanning are intended for slaughter regardless, but larger-size hogs are becoming more widely used by farmers looking to support themselves as the African swine flu devastates pig populations in Asian countries.

China is the world’s largest pork consumer, accounting for more than half of global pork consumption. Small farmers and large pork corporations in the country are all gearing toward growing larger hogs, Bloomberg reports, attempting to increase the average weight by 14% to boost profits by 30%.

The Chinese government has warned that supply will be “extremely severe” in the first half of 2020 because of the shortages, with Chinese farmers having to kill a third of their supply. The pork shortage is estimated to reach 10 million tons.

The outbreak prompted farmers to kill an estimated 250 million to 300 million animals in an attempt to stop the spread of the disease. Government officials are urging hog farmers to start normal production as soon as possible to increase the domestic supply of pork, but farmers are wary of contamination.

In addition, piglets and breeding sows are becoming more expensive in China, a result of the mass culling. The demand for pork is likely to cause global pork prices to rise as well.