How should dead livestock and poultry be handled? Find them a good way out

There is an old saying among livestock and poultry farmers: "Wealth of ten thousand strings, but it doesn't count until it's covered in fur." This shows the huge risks faced by livestock and poultry farming. According to statistics, China is the country that produces and consumes the most pigs in the world. Even at a normal mortality rate of 3% for pigs, the large breeding base and high proportion of free-range farming mean the absolute number of pig deaths is large.

The key question is, "Where do the dead pigs go?" Because there is not enough processing capacity, farmers take the easy way out and simply dump dead pigs into rivers. After all, the pig is already dead, and spending more money on deep burial or incineration would only increase costs for the farmer. Even more dead pigs flow into the market. At the end of last year, the incident exposed by the media in Gao'an, Jiangxi, of dead pigs flowing into the market let consumers know that by selling dead pig meat, a single slaughterhouse alone could earn 20 million yuan per year in sales revenue.

When pigs get sick, the farmers are the ones most deserving of sympathy. But in order to reduce losses, they throw dead pigs into rivers or sell them to pig dealers, allowing pork with safety hazards to harm the environment or end up on dining tables. The farmers, who are in a disadvantaged position, then become the perpetrators of harm to public environmental safety and food safety.

Simply "blocking" is not a solution. At the end of last year, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Establishing a Harmless Treatment Mechanism for Dead Livestock and Poultry," which explicitly proposed strengthening the primary responsibility of producers and operators, implementing territorial management responsibilities, and strengthening the construction of harmless treatment systems. Harmless treatment facilities and equipment are included in the scope of agricultural machinery purchase subsidies, enjoy relevant national tax preferences, and only through harmless treatment can insurance claims be obtained... By allowing farmers to reduce losses through the harmless treatment of dead pigs, and allowing enterprises participating in harmless treatment to taste the benefits in production, the establishment of the "harmless treatment mechanism for dead livestock and poultry" guides the management of dead livestock and poultry to achieve a transformation from "blocking as the main approach" to "combining blocking with guidance."

In fact, the practice of harmless treatment of dead livestock and poultry carried out in Sichuan, Jiangsu and other places is not only a legal constraint to ensure dining table safety, but also an important measure to promote the development of the local livestock industry and the construction of ecological civilization. High-temperature biodegradation, converting dead livestock and poultry into bio-organic fertilizer and industrial oil, and various scientific research and market activities around the treatment and utilization of dead livestock and poultry, turn dead livestock and poultry into treasure. Harmless treatment that finds a "good way out" for dead livestock and poultry not only revitalizes the situation of livestock industry development, but also tightens the institutional mechanisms for safeguarding "tongue safety" and ecological civilization. It is both a business opportunity and a public health and ecological benefit, achieving multiple benefits at once and benefiting the country, the people and enterprises.

From the treatment mechanism for dead livestock and poultry, we can draw some inspiration: many food safety problems require not only strict supervision, but also sustainable operational mechanisms. This is true for the harmless treatment of dead livestock and poultry, and it is also true for the establishment of a "reducing fertilizer and pesticides" mechanism in agricultural production. By using sustainable economic benefits to guide the healthy and orderly development of the industry, many food safety problems will be eliminated at the source.