The Pig Soy Complex and the Making of Chimerica

Pigs make up the largest part of the global meat market pound for pound, and China produces and consumes about half of the world’s pigs, most of which are produced with methods and technology owned by US/UK based agribusinesses. Not only does the Chinese appetite for pigs sustain global agribusiness, it also curated most of the genetic material from which today’s industrial pig is formed. Crossing lean, large, and fast-growing British pigs with fat, docile, and early maturing Chinese ones enabled pigs to make it onto industrializing Atlantic meat markets in the 19th century. These hybrids became the “purebreds” that Chinese pig farmers now purchase from the US, UK, Denmark, and France in order to propagate their own industrially farmed pig populations. Since China joined the WTO in 2001, Chinese pigs have become possibly the most significant consumers of global soybeans, which have been the fastest growing crop in terms of acreage planted in US, Brazil, and Argentina, mostly grown for the export market and heavily subsidized. It is worth noting that soybeans, too, were first cultivated in China, and only after the Reform and Opening Up period did China become a net importer of soybeans. Today, China regularly accounts for up to 60% of global soybean exports, most of which ends up in pig feed. How did this system come together? What were the benefits and trade-offs in terms of health and environment? How sustainable is it? In answering these questions, this paper presents an exploration of the post-70’s world of global agribusiness, a world, it argues, that can only be understood as chimerical.