Three distinctive new eco-pig breeds that many people have never seen
Pork has recently drawn a great deal of attention, and the state has rolled out a series of policies in the hope of restoring hog production as quickly as possible and promoting the healthy development of the hog industry. But there are also some distinctive eco-pigs whose selling points differ from ordinary pigs - all-new versions you have never seen.
1. The internet-famous pigs that eat fruit
In Yujia Village, Mushihe Town, Changchun, Jilin, there is a cooperative with a 6-mu orchard filled with crabapples and apple pears. These fruits are not grown for sale - they are eaten by the pigs raised by the cooperative. The pigs being raised are today's internet celebrities, known as “fruit fragrant pigs.”
The “fruit fragrant pig” is the brainchild of cooperative founder Kang Dandan, who returned to her hometown in 2016 to start a business and bred a cross between northern wild boar and southern fragrant pig. These pigs are raised free-range in the orchard, eating not only grain and vegetables but also fruit. The “fruit fragrant pigs” take more than 1 year to reach market weight, and each jin sells for about 30 to 48 yuan, twice the price of ordinary pigs. With the current boom in e-commerce and short videos on Douyin, Kuaishou and other platforms, videos of the “fruit fragrant pigs” eating fruit, playing and sleeping have been posted online, and they have now become internet-famous pigs, extremely popular in China.
The “fruit fragrant pigs” absorb a large amount of vitamins from fruit and vegetables - nutrients that are not found in feed - so their quality is relatively good, and consumers who know the facts are willing to pay a relatively high price to buy them.
2. Piglets that live in dormitories
In early 2016, Wang Xiaoshan and his friends founded the pig farm Shanxigu, meaning good mountains and good water raise good pigs. Through online brand operation and rapid recruitment, they converted ordinary pig sheds into Huizhou-style architecture, simple and spacious, and also planted lawns and built exercise yards for the pigs. They created happy pigs raised in a happy environment.
These pigs' “dormitories” are kept clean and tidy; they eat eco-friendly pig grass and cornmeal, drink spring water piped in from the back mountain, and get 1 hour of exercise time every day. In the exercise yard the pigs either run joyfully or root in the ground eating grass, endlessly happy. Through the experience-store approach, the high-quality pork won customers' unstinting praise and opened up the market.
3. Piglets that run
Furong Village, Xinqing Town, Teng County, Guangxi, is located in a remote area surrounded by mountains, with lush and flourishing mountain forests - a natural oxygen bar - giving it unique advantages for raising black mountain pigs. A chance encounter during a trip led villager Tang Fude to discover this business opportunity, so relying on his hometown's ecological treasure land, he began the road to prosperity by raising “mountain-walking pigs.”
At the Furong distinctive pig breeding demonstration park in Xinqing Town, Teng County, small groups of black fragrant pigs and black native pigs dart about the farm, looking around in all directions. These “little fragrant pigs” are the apple of villager Tang Fude's eye, and to develop his own farm he put in a great deal of thought and effort. To make the black native pigs even better in quality, the black native pigs Tang Fude raises must go up the mountain to “run” for at least two months. During the breeding process, he feeds them red elephant grass, sweet potato leaves, corn, soybean meal and tofu dregs, and free-ranges them in the wild for three months before sale, to ensure the fragrant pigs are green and healthy with delicious meat and pure flavor. The green, pollution-free black fragrant pigs and black native pigs are loved by consumers.
As people's material conditions improve, they are willing to pay a relatively high price for green, ecological and healthy food, and raising distinctive eco-pigs wins over consumers with premium quality.