Environment concerns and waste management strategies of pig production in China

Abstract Text: With the largest population in the world, the Chinese government continues to stimulate pork production to meet the increased demand for protein consumption. However, the increases in hog population and density have created various environmental problems in China. One of the issues is that it can cause water and land contamination when farm wastes being handled incorrectly. Most recently, China published the most updated waste management regulation for animal industry, effective from January 1, 2014. Waste management has become an important focus for swine industry in China. The objective of this study was designed to assess waste streams in pig production under the most current situation in China. Commercial pig farms (n=50) were chosen from 11 different provinces, representing the major area of swine production in China. The size of the pig farm ranges from small, medium, and large. Data was collected through farm visit (and/or farm inspection), personal interview, focus group, meeting discussion, survey questionnaire, and farm document review. A group of Chinese swine experts, including central and local government officers as well as educators and researchers from different university and institute, was selected to verify data and acquire data consensus. This study finds that daily manually scraping of pig pens along with floor water-line flushing is a common method for solid manure collection and pen hygiene. However, the continuously increasing human labor cost in pig production has forced the solid manure collection method to change from manual to automatic. In addition, the usage of concrete slatted floors to avoid daily manually scraping and flushing is becoming more accepted. Moreover, in order to reduce the volume of farm slurry, newly designed farms commonly utilize underground pipe for slurry collection and avoid mixing of rainwater. This study also finds the currently government-sponsored anaerobic digester project, promoted as a method of treating slurry, is rarely found to be successful at large-scale intensive pig farms. Consequently, Chinese government should take serious actions to enforce the disposing of farm waste in a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly approach, such as compost and organic fertilizer plant. In conclusion, waste water increases manure volume, which in turn may increase the cost of manure storage and distribution or increase the cost of treatment if to meet the emission standards. Therefore, pig farms should adopt new equipment and innovative technology to avoid water wastage, as well as implement novel waste management method to support sustainability.

Keywords: Environment concerns, Waste management, Sustainability