A History of Pigs in China: From Curious Omnivores to Industrial Pork

Pigs have played a central role in the subsistence and culture of China for millennia. The close relationship between pigs and people began when humans gradually domesticated wild pigs over 8,000 years ago. While pigs initially foraged around settlements, population growth led people to pen their pi...

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Published in:The Journal of Asian studies Vol. 79; no. 4; pp. 865 - 889
Main Authors: Lander, Brian, Schneider, Mindi, Brunson, Katherine
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.11.2020
Duke University Press, NC & IL
Subjects:
Agricultural land
Animals
Antibiotics
Asian cultural groups
Asian studies
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
Domestication
Farms
Genetic testing
Health problems
Hogs
Households
Meat industry
Mitochondrial DNA
North and South
Population growth
Resistance
Soya beans
Eurasia
China
Yellow River
agriculture
pigs
environment
China
livestock
animals
food
ISSN:0021-9118, 1752-0401
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Pigs have played a central role in the subsistence and culture of China for millennia. The close relationship between pigs and people began when humans gradually domesticated wild pigs over 8,000 years ago. While pigs initially foraged around settlements, population growth led people to pen their pigs, which made them household trash processors and fertilizer producers. Household pigs were in daily contact with people, who bred them to fatten quickly and produce larger litters. Early modern Europeans found Chinese pigs far superior to their own and bred the two to create the breeds now employed in industrial pork production around the world, including China. In recent decades, industrial farms that scientifically control every aspect of pigs’ lives have spread rapidly. Until recently, most Chinese people ate pork only on special occasions; their ability in recent decades to eat it regularly exemplifies China's increasing prosperity. Meanwhile, vast areas of North and South American farmland are now devoted to growing soybeans to feed hundreds of millions of pigs in China, and the methane, manure, and antibiotic resistance they produce creates environmental and health problems on a global scale.
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ISSN:0021-9118
1752-0401
DOI:10.1017/S0021911820000054