Behind the pig epidemic: the grassroots veterinary system facing collapse
Behind the pig epidemic: the grassroots veterinary system facing collapse
Behind the frequent outbreaks of major animal epidemics such as "highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome" in recent years, and the unusual pork price surge this summer, lies China's semi-paralysed grassroots veterinary system
One morning, a tinker came to Li Yuexi's home, a dark-skinned, short middle-aged man; he worked with his head down in silence, his technique somewhat rusty;; he was a fellow weighed down with worries.
Li Yuexi was curious that anyone these days would still run around for a few yuan's worth of business. He asked, "What did you do before?"
The tinker said, "I was a veterinarian."
The answer shocked him, then made him feel a kinship. That morning, veterinarian Li Yuexi met another veterinarian, Chen Zuwei. When the two middle-aged veterinarians' eyes met, they recognised each other's current identity: one a tinker, one a motorcycle taxi driver. At Li Yuexi's doorstep was parked a "Jianshe" brand motorcycle, its frame loose from many falls, its rearview mirror fallen off; this somewhat wobbly motorcycle taxi brought him an income of about 30 yuan a day.
Li Yuexi, who entered the livestock station of Chejiang Township, Hengnan County, Hunan Province in 1984, worked as a veterinarian for more than 20 years. He said, "In the 1980s and 1990s, the livestock station held meetings three times a month, mainly to learn from experience and exchange views; after the 1990s, once a month; after 2000, once a year, and later basically none at all."
Today, the place still bearing the livestock station's signboard is a shop selling feed and medicine. The owners are the station chief and his wife, and of the livestock station's 28 veterinarians, apart from 6 still on duty, the rest, like Li Yuexi and Chen Zuwei, make their living as taxi drivers, rag pickers, small traders, or by going out to work.
The change in Li Yuexi's work is a microcosm of the current state of China's veterinary system. In 2005, an article in the journal China Animal Quarantine argued that China's veterinary management system still follows the model of the planned economy era. The problem of chaotically structured veterinary institutions has reached a very prominent level; due to years of lagging development, the grassroots veterinary system has never developed rapidly, and has now reached a bottleneck. And in some township livestock epidemic prevention stations in Hengnan County, vaccinating farmers' poultry has already been abandoned.
On the other hand, "foot-and-mouth disease", "Streptococcus suis", "avian influenza", "highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome"... the frequent outbreaks of major animal epidemics in recent years, as well as the unusual pork price surge this summer, have tested the same conclusion from two different angles: Li Yuexi said, "In rural areas, grassroots epidemic prevention work is mostly in a state of paralysis."
"We lost the gamble" Within 15 days, of 105 pigs, 70 died. "More than 10 years of hard-earned savings, all lost"
"Pig farming is a gamble, if you're lucky..."
53-year-old farmer Li Shaoyi used this sentence to sum up his 5 years of pig farming experience; the factors he called luck could be listed endlessly: "pigs don't get sick, prices stay balanced, meat prices rise..."
This summer, these factors all manifested in the opposite direction, yet meat prices rose. According to statistics, pork prices, which began soaring in April, repeatedly set 10-year record highs. After pork wholesale prices in mid-May rose by as much as 43% compared with the same period the previous year, on September 11 the Ministry of Agriculture released information that compared with the same period last year, in August pork prices still showed strong momentum, averaging 86.5%. On September 4, Bi Jingquan, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said: "The beneficiaries of the pork price rise are mainly farmers."
"Did you make money?" Sitting on Li Yuexi's motorcycle, this question travelled across Chejiang Township from east to west, extending along the rural road. Li Shaoyi and his wife Wang Fangmei were weeding by the roadside, his pig farm just 10 metres away, now very quiet. Three months earlier, of the 20 sows in the pigsty, more than 10 had died, and more than 100 piglets had not a single survivor; some feverish fattened pigs were also hastily disposed of. He said, "Farming pigs for 5 years, I made 30,000-40,000 yuan, and lost 70,000-80,000 yuan."
If you had a transportation map of Hunan Province in front of you, studying these road networks extending in all directions like capillaries, and then matched it with some data, you would very intuitively see that along these routes, more than 30 million pigs are transported out each year, of which more than 20 million go to Guangzhou.
The starting point of these mighty pig routes is small and medium-sized farmers like Li Shaoyi.
Tan Xiaoying was the second farmer to answer "we lost the gamble." If it had been before June, the answer would have been different: looking at the 105 plump pigs in the pigsty, she would have been calculating the latest round of meat prices in her heart, then beaming with joy, the fattened pigs before her, raised for three months and averaging 125 jin in weight, seeming to become her 26-year-old son's bride-price fund.
Then her pigs began to fall ill, "with persistent high fever, finally collapsing on the ground, without even the strength to move." Tan Xiaoying called over Zeng Huankun, head of the Chejiang Township livestock station, "after medicine and injections, still no improvement."
Within 15 days, of 105 pigs, 70 died. When the other pigs also began to show symptoms of "reddening of the whole body skin, purple bleeding points in the pores, bleeding spots, etc.", Tan Xiaoying sold them to the pig dealers who came to buy, at 500 yuan per pig.
And in March this year, when Tan Xiaoying bought piglets from Changde at 17.4 yuan/jin, each pig weighed more than 20 jin, costing her more than 40,000 yuan. At this time, feed prices also began to rise. Tan Xiaoying and her husband threw themselves wholeheartedly into the pig-farming business, ploughing all the capital they had saved from pig farming before into it. She said, "If the pigs don't die, we'd still make money."
But the final result was that Tan Xiaoying lost the gamble. A month ago, her husband, over 50, found work building roads at a construction site a few kilometres from home. "More than 10 years of hard-earned savings, all lost in a few months."
Tan Xiaoying still has not figured out where the disease came from. This disease, formally named "porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome," broke out last year in provinces including Hunan and Jiangxi, and a new outbreak occurred in Guangdong Province in April this year. Data released by the Ministry of Agriculture at the end of August confirmed that this year a total of 257,000 pigs in 26 provinces across the country were infected with porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, of which 68,000 died.
The losses caused by the larger-scale outbreak last year are not included in the calculation. Since 1980, more than 30 kinds of animal diseases have been introduced from abroad or newly discovered domestically; more than 200 kinds of infectious diseases and more than 900 kinds of parasites have occurred in China, most of which have not been eliminated, and the direct economic losses caused by disease deaths nationwide amount to as much as 23.8 billion yuan each year.
The chaotic township veterinary stations "This is similar to an individually contracted operator, yet its identity is state-owned, carrying out government directives"
When foot-and-mouth disease, Streptococcus suis, avian influenza, high-fever disease... these epidemics that Tan Xiaoying and others had never heard of before took turns appearing in recent years, the functions of rural grassroots livestock stations also changed. Along with the merging of townships (towns) and villages, as the most solid part of the rural animal epidemic prevention system, the personnel of township livestock and veterinary stations were streamlined, and a large number of veterinarians were laid off.
Chen Baixiu, a veterinarian at the Chejiang Township livestock and veterinary station, said that after three townships merged into today's Chejiang Township, the 28 veterinarians were rendered unemployed as if overnight. But Li Yuexi believes it was a slow, drawn-out process. From going to work and holding meetings a few years ago, to later the station chief calling to notify them when there was something to do, to now not hearing a single word from any unit in a whole year. "Gradually fading out of the post, until one day you wake up, get dressed ready to go to work, walk to the door and suddenly realise you're already unemployed, yet you can't find any evidence to prove you're unemployed."
Compared with other government institutions, China's livestock and veterinary stations are a unique system; administrative institutions are rather chaotic in administrative rank and establishment nature, and public institutions in name and functions undertaken.
Zhou Jinsheng, head of the epidemic prevention station of the Hengnan County Livestock Bureau, said, "At the county level it's a civil service establishment, while grassroots townships belong to a self-financing public institution establishment." In this sense, the township livestock and veterinary station is an independently accounting unit. The competent department only provides guidance on business, and takes no responsibility in other respects. "This is similar to an individually contracted operator, yet its identity is state-owned, carrying out government directives."
And with the outbreak of animal epidemics, especially during the large-scale spread of Streptococcus suis and avian influenza in 2005, the epidemic prevention and quarantine functions of livestock and veterinary stations became increasingly important. For example, the Chejiang Township livestock and veterinary station also hung another signboard, "Chejiang Township Animal Epidemic Prevention Station."
"In reality it's one set of personnel, two signboards," Chen Baixiu said. Apart from "the two signboards being given by the government, everything else is earned by the livestock station itself."
The livestock and veterinary station's initial profit channels were collecting vaccine injection service fees and a 3 yuan quarantine fee per pig; now they also include profits from selling feed and veterinary medicine. Chen Baixiu believes the latter's proportion is growing day by day.
Chen Baixiu said the Chejiang Township Animal Epidemic Prevention Station is the best station in Hengnan County; whenever provincial or municipal leaders come to inspect, they are always arranged to come here. In this sense, this place is undoubtedly the best specimen for dissecting the current state of China's rural animal epidemic prevention system. This article comes from the No.1 Pig Farming Network,
This three-storey building was built in 1988, at the busiest southeast corner of Chejiang Township. The ground floor storefront is run by the station chief and his wife, selling veterinary medicine and feed; the second floor is the livestock epidemic prevention station's office, furnished with some simple furniture, and then a meeting room with a long round table. Certificates of merit covering the walls confirm the station's glory days; the animal laboratory next door seems like an open lie. Chen Baixiu said, "Apart from us calling it a laboratory, there's actually nothing inside, just a stool and a table folded up, empty all around, without any equipment."
And in another room called the "Everyone's Happy" recreation room, apart from a square table for playing mahjong, the remaining space is occupied by dust. "Equipment? Yes, there is still some equipment." Chen Baixiu thought for a moment, "When fighting avian influenza, we were issued a white gown, a pair of rain boots, a medicine box, a flashlight, a hand-press sprayer... that's all."
Afterwards, she said proudly, "Our livestock station is the best in Hengnan County; some townships don't even have a building."
This building, on which the government did not spend a single cent, has now become a demonstration site for showcasing grassroots epidemic prevention work. And the most important point is that the government trusts it greatly and resolutely entrusts it with the epidemic prevention and quarantine tasks for 24 villages, 3 neighbourhood committees, as well as military units, factories and mines, and schools, with more than 60,000 head of livestock and more than 1.1 million poultry marketed annually.
Where have the veterinarians gone? After the Streptococcus suis outbreak in 2005, the traditional free-range method began to loosen, and veterinarians found it hard to carry on.
If it happens to be a fine sunny day, or even a rainy day, as long as it's not a thunderstorm, after getting off at Chejiang Township you will immediately be surrounded by a swarm of motorcycle taxis, and Li Yuexi is sure to be among them.
Of the 28 veterinarians in Chejiang Township, in 2005, 15 went out to work, 3 became motorcycle taxi drivers in the township, and some elderly ones, such as the 80-year-old veterinarian Li Wenhua, now make a living by collecting scraps.
Compared with the huge sums the state invests each year in animal epidemic prevention construction, veterinarians have received no care, even though they undertake the concrete implementation of epidemic prevention projects. These veterinarians don't even have a salary. Taking Hengnan County as an example, the county has 547 registered veterinarians, and the government has never needed to consider spending a single cent on these people.
The livestock station, shaped like a contracted responsibility system, has the station chief responsible for all expenditure and control, including the veterinarians' pay.
The veterinarians' main task is vaccine injections in spring and autumn each year, usually divided by assigning each veterinarian responsibility for a certain village's area, collecting service fees and quarantine fees one by one. And the wage model changed with the level of farmers' enthusiasm for breeding: "At first, all fees collected by veterinarians had to be handed in, and the station returned 40 yuan per month as the veterinarian's pay; later, 60 yuan was handed in to the livestock station each month, and the rest of the income belonged to the veterinarian, at which time veterinarians earned about 300 yuan per month in commission; from 2004, even this bit of income ceased to exist. If there was a special epidemic requiring help, the station chief would call the veterinarian over, and however much the pay was for a day, it was settled on the spot, no different from doing odd jobs."
The direct cause of this change was that rural pig farmers, under multiple pressures, began to decline sharply. After the Streptococcus suis outbreak in 2005, the unified pig slaughter system was gradually established, the traditional free-range method began to loosen, and the reduction in pig production left veterinarians in a difficult position.
In May 2004, Hunan Province took the lead nationwide in reforming township livestock and veterinary stations. It required that, according to administrative divisions, township animal epidemic prevention stations undertaking public welfare functions such as animal epidemic prevention be established on the basis of township livestock and veterinary stations, with full-time animal epidemic prevention officers allocated at an average standard of 3 per township.
A total of 8,348 people were hired, entitled to a salary of 6,500 yuan/year, and to various insurances and benefits. This number, for the vast rural veterinary workforce, only made a small portion into the regular ranks. Of Hengnan County's 547 veterinarians, only 131 were included in the quota. According to policy, veterinarians who were not resolved were to be diverted and disbanded on their own.
Like the chronic problems encountered in the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, this batch of veterinarians faces a bleak old age. "Back then I was recruited into the livestock station as a formal worker, which resolved my urban household registration, and I worked as a veterinarian for decades, until I was laid off and sent back, only to find there was no pension insurance, unemployment insurance, or social medical insurance at all." Of course, they also cannot return to farming in the countryside, and are not even included in the local minimum living security system.
In a text message, Xie Yangsheng, a veterinarian in Jinweizhou Township, Hengnan County, recounted a veterinarian's life: "I apprenticed to learn the trade in 1981, and joined the livestock and veterinary station of Qingyun Township, Lijiang District in 1989 to this day. Every epidemic prevention task included me, and on August 21, 1980 I paid 160 yuan in management fees to the veterinary station. On December 18, 1991, when the Hengnan County Livestock Bureau built a new office building, I contributed 200 yuan and 50 days of voluntary labour. On March 16, 1994 I paid the Livestock Bureau a 420 yuan regularisation fee and a 5 yuan magazine subscription fee." All these contributions, by November 6, 1994, were exchanged for a "Hunan Province Veterinary Practice Licence." But in the 2004 reform, he belonged to the majority who were not included in the quota.
40-year-old Xie Yangsheng stood on the town's street. That day was the first day of school at the town's middle school; after registering his daughter, he returned the way he came. The rain had not stopped, and Xie Yangsheng looked around blankly. Around a street corner was the rented premises of the Jinweizhou Township livestock and veterinary station; he had not received a task for 2 years.
Three days after the feed factory's expert came to treat them, all the pigs that had been given the vaccine the expert recommended died
The veterinarians are all busy making a living, and the newly established township animal epidemic prevention station, as Chen Baixiu said, is merely an extra signboard.
Chejiang Township winds along a long, narrow road; the busiest central section is no more than 1,000 metres, yet 5 feed stores are doing business there, and some villages also have their own feed agencies. In appearance and function, these feed stores are no different from the livestock and veterinary stations. They are all in competition, and most importantly, whatever the livestock station has, the feed stores also have, such as veterinary medicine and diagnosis and treatment of some animal diseases. In Chejiang Township, many feed stores, such as He Meilian, owner of the He Meilian Veterinary Medicine Store, are themselves veterinarians at the township livestock and veterinary station, and are on par with them in treating and injecting.
The commercial character of township livestock and veterinary stations has blurred their public welfare functions,Pig farmingfarmer He Liang complained that the price information provided by the government is neither comprehensive nor accurate, "they are simply also promoting their medicine and feed." Therefore, farmers usually rely on information heard in feed stores to judge the future direction of the market.
Based on information gleaned from feed stores, at the end of June, He Liang bought 318 piglets from Xinshao County. At this time, stimulated by rising meat prices, piglet prices rose across the board, 490 yuan/head for the large ones, 420 yuan/head for the smaller ones. He said, "Before we raised pigs on surplus grain, now we throw the entire family fortune in for a gamble."
More than 10 days after buying them, the piglets began to fall ill, with red and swollen eyes and unsteady walking. He Liang found a local feed sales agency. In rural areas, pork prices stimulated farmers' enthusiasm for breeding, and also pushed competition among feed manufacturers to a climax. Feed manufacturers promised: any farmer who bought that brand of feed, when their pigs showed certain difficult symptoms, would be sent an expert free of charge to diagnose.
In the farmers' eyes, these experts bearing the title of professor even replaced the veterinarians of the township livestock stations. On the 3rd day after He Liang's piglets fell ill, the feed manufacturer sent an expert surnamed Wang to the village. After catching 2 piglets, the expert found he had forgotten to bring his tools, so he told He Liang to go buy blades for castrating pigs.
The whole dissection process lasted 3 hours; the liver, stomach, heart, lungs, and intestines were taken out of the pig's abdominal cavity one by one, and then the expert turned and left without saying anything.
He Liang saw him to the village entrance, and could not help asking about the diagnosis. The expert said it was oedema disease and Streptococcus. Then the expert wrote a prescription and told He Liang to go get the medicine. After buying more than 300 yuan worth of medicine, the piglets slowly died. Three days later, He Liang went to the He Meilian Veterinary Medicine Store in town; the owner called to consult an expert, and a professor said to be from Hunan Agricultural University gave a prescription over the phone. After He Liang immediately bought the medicine and went back to inject it, the number of feverish pigs increased from 8 to more than 40.
He hurried to the He Meilian Veterinary Medicine Store, and the expert explained over the phone that fever in pigs is normal, don't worry about it, "the first day is a vaccine reaction, the second day it will ease, the third day basically stable."
Three days later, all the pigs that had been given the vaccine the expert recommended died. Of the 318 pigs, in less than a month, only 91 remained.
Cases in which the vaccine prescriptions given by feed manufacturers' experts led to the death of most of the pigs also occurred amongpig farmingfarmers Wang Xiangfa, He Jiming, and He Jixue. When of 48 pigs only 12 remained, He Jiming finally saw on the feed manufacturer's materials brought by the expert that it clearly stated: after pigs show fever symptoms, injecting the vaccine not only does not work, but actually accelerates death.
"Pigs died every day, and every day we carried the pigs to the back hill to bury them; they died for a full week." He Jiming said bitterly. He questioned the feed store owner He Meilian, "The materials state it very clearly, doesn't the expert have even this bit of common sense?"
"The expert must be real; the person came all the way from Changsha, and doesn't even charge you money, would they really cheat you?" He Meilian said.
The abandoned defence line "Apart from collecting the ear tag fee, we haven't vaccinated farmers' pigs and poultry for two years"
Luo Sanyuan, a veterinarian in Chashi Township, said there are more and more diseased pigs and chickens in rural areas, and the township livestock and veterinary stations cannot escape responsibility. "This is not alarmist talk. Because there is no refrigeration equipment, after the vaccines are collected from the county seat and distributed to the veterinarians, by the time the veterinarians go door to door to inject them, more than a week has passed, and most of the vaccines have already lost their effectiveness; secondly, many veterinarians' skills have not been updated. Most rural grassroots veterinarians graduated from agricultural schools, or learned through apprenticeship. Before the 1970s there were still training classes, but after the 1980s there was almost no professional training, and they cannot diagnose sudden outbreaks."
These veterinarians, who have walked the countryside all their lives, also realise that for today's young people, this profession is becoming less and less attractive. "More than a decade ago no one was willing to do this work anymore," Chen Baixiu and her husband are both veterinarians, but their son is extremely tired of this line of work. "Even going to Guangzhou to work is better than being a veterinarian," he said.
"They only show up when you buy pigs, in order to collect a 5 yuan ear tag fee per pig." Farmer Tan Xiaoying evaluated veterinarians this way. The button-like plastic tag nailed to the pig's ear symbolises that it has passed quarantine by the animal epidemic prevention department and can circulate on the market.
Wang Jiucheng, the 57-year-old accountant at the Chejiang Township livestock and veterinary station, said the cost of each pig's ear tag is about 2 jiao, the livestock station's purchase price from the county livestock bureau is 8 jiao, then it distributes them to veterinarians at 2 yuan, and the veterinarians collect a 3 yuan (raised to 5 yuan from this year) ear tag fee from each pig farmer.
"In Jinweizhou Township, apart from collecting the ear tag fee, we haven't vaccinated farmers' pigs and poultry for two years." Veterinarian Chen Zuwei said. Jinweizhou Township has 33 villages and more than 28,000 people. In 2004, after the reform of township livestock and veterinary stations in Hunan Province, the Jinweizhou livestock and veterinary station had only one epidemic prevention officer, Liu Xiangdong; the station chief Chen Siqing had his qualification cancelled because he was reported for having a second child in violation of the policy.
Liu Xiangdong's wife told the reporter by phone that Liu had gone to Guangzhou to work last year, and this year had only come back once, staying at home for two days before leaving again.
"During the epidemic prevention period, Liu Xiangdong still came back to give the vaccines." Chen Siqing said, a man with an annual salary of only 6,500 yuan, if he doesn't go out to find some work, how can he support his family?
Chen Siqing felt aggrieved at his own situation. He said, "I had a daughter in 1999; when my son was born in 1996, I still had a rural household registration and could have a second child." This middle-aged man, who had been station chief at the Jinweizhou Township livestock and veterinary station since 2001, is now in a difficult position, "as the station chief, yet not a formal worker."
On January 10, 2006, he submitted a report to the county livestock and aquatic products bureau requesting an increase in staffing, which has since gone unanswered. These circumstances have clearly affected his work morale. "After 2005, the foot-and-mouth disease vaccine was only given to specialised pig farmers; this year we didn't do it (the vaccine) for free-range households."
The livestock and veterinary station's account books were lost long ago, and a 252L Osepu freezer issued by the county livestock and aquatic products bureau in 2000 was also turned off because it consumed 2 kilowatt-hours of electricity a day. Chen Siqing believes it doesn't matter whether things are done well or badly; he has thought about giving up.
But Chen Zuwei remembers that in April last year, after discovering that farmers in Jinweizhou Township had not been vaccinated, he called the provincial livestock and aquatic products general station. In early May, two people came from the province and gave the preventive injections. But the autumn preventive injections were not given. In April this year, Chen Zuwei called twice more, and this time there was no news at all.
Let small-scale farmers fade out of the market. Du Mei, who raises several thousand pigs, is one of the beneficiaries, yet he repeats what the small-scale farmers say: "Pig farmingis a gamble."
From this summer's pork price rise, Zhang Yongliang, director of the Hengyang Municipal Livestock and Aquatic Products Bureau, saw the precursor of a structural change in breeding. Like officials of the Hunan Provincial Livestock and Aquatic Products Bureau, they believe the problems in the veterinary system are gradually improving, and that the most important thing now is that Hunan Province's pork supply remains stable.
"Through market elimination, letting small-scale farmers fade out of the market is not necessarily a bad thing." He said, "Facts have proven that only large pig farmers made money in this price fluctuation."
According to this claim, Hengyang local Du Mei is one of the beneficiaries, but he does not think so, "I'm making money from dead and diseased pigs; the more pigs die, the more I make."
More than 10 kilometres from the urban area of Hengyang is Du Mei'spig farmingfarm. A rural road covered in fallen leaves, wide and potholed, leads straight to a courtyard converted from a state-owned chicken farm abandoned in the 1990s. There the iron gate is tightly shut all year round, and high walls cut it off from the outside world. After calling to verify identity, you walk as instructed through a side door into a long, narrow passage and stand for 5 minutes; the sprayer overhead automatically sprays Bus disinfectant down, soaking you all over. Then you enter a closed single room, turn on the fluorescent light, and the whole room is filled with pale purple glow. "This is genuine ultraviolet light, it can kill germs brought in from outside." Du Mei said, taking a 100-yuan renminbi note from his wallet and holding it under the light; the anti-counterfeiting watermark on the note is clearly visible. This process also includes filling in a detailed visitor registration form. Even after the large truck delivering feed drives up, it also needs to be disinfected and wait at the gate. The whole disinfection process takes about 20 minutes.
Four households live at the pig farm, their food, clothing, housing and transport all within this closed system; their only work is caring for several thousand pigs - including more than 400 sows. The pig farmers realise that "self-breeding and self-raising is an effective way to cut off maternal transmission."
Du Mei's pig farm represents the government's new direction for macro-control of the breeding industry - "promoting standardised, large-scale breeding." Zhang Yongliang, director of the Hengyang Municipal Livestock and Aquatic Products Bureau, said, "Over three years, Hengyang City has already achieved more than 5,000 farms of over one hundred pigs in scale; we are ahead of the whole country."
Next, Hengyang, as the pig industry base of Hunan Province, a major pig-producing province nationwide, will double the number of hundred-pig-scale farms within two years.
"Letting small-scale farmers gradually be eliminated in the market, facts have proven that this model can be replicated; large pig farms have a capital base and technical investment." Zhang Yongliang admits that some large farms' professional knowledge and veterinary technology far exceed those of township livestock and veterinary stations.
"They hire university technical talent at high salaries, have their own laboratories, and mix their own feed; these are all things we cannot compare with." Said the highest leader of Hengyang City's livestock system.
Nevertheless, the relationship between the government and large farms still needs communication. At Du Mei's pig farm, the farm manager, over 40, has some views about local officials, because officials gave out the state's interest-free loan quotas for supporting the breeding industry to relatives and friends based on favouritism. "No one knows how they operated it; we didn't get a single cent."
"Everything depends on ourselves; no one helps me, no one reminds me when to vaccinate, how big market demand is, what epidemics are prevalent this year."
Large farms have an advantage in market forecasting, but the problem is that they too find it hard to get the information they need to make scientific decisions. No one releases information or early-warning analysis. They worry that once any kind of epidemic breaks out, everything before them will be reduced to nothing.
“Pig farmingis a gamble," Du Mei repeated what the small-scale farmers say. This year he won a round, "but luck can't always be this good."
Veterinarians' livelihood
Hengnan County has 547 registered veterinarians, and the government has never needed to consider spending a single cent on these people. In May 2004, Hunan Province took the lead nationwide in reforming township livestock and veterinary stations, streamlining the personnel of township livestock and veterinary stations, and a large number of veterinarians were laid off. Of Hengnan County's 547 veterinarians, only 131 were included in the quota, becoming the regular ranks. According to policy, veterinarians who were not resolved were to be diverted and disbanded on their own. Most of them face a bleak old age.
The livestock station, shaped like a contracted responsibility system, has the station chief responsible for all expenditure and control, including the veterinarians' pay. Against this background, the commercial character of township livestock and veterinary stations gradually blurred their public welfare functions.
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Sigh, the government is not doing its job!
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What is said makes a lot of sense. The level and interests of grassroots veterinarians, etc., lead to drug abuse; veterinarians can't wait to prescribe more medicine to farmers..... The consequences are very serious. Strongly support the original poster's view.
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It's heartbreaking to see! This is our current situation!
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It simply shocks me
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The truth, it's all the truth!
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After reading the whole article carefully, I feel sorrow and pain, and ponder: whose fault is this? Where has the State Council's 2005 "Opinions on the Reform of the Veterinary Management System" been put?
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Alas! Apart from sighing, what else can be said? Which department can truly implement good policies in place?
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Paying attention; the grassroots veterinary system needs to be improved
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The analysis is very thorough
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It's heartbreaking to watch~~~~
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In this article, apart from your sympathy for grassroots veterinarians, I can't see any other meaning.
You should be clear that preventing and treating livestock and poultry diseases would be meaningless even if grassroots veterinarians were restored to their former state. Even rebuilding a large-scale veterinary organisation would likewise fail. Because the current reality is: any official organisation is gradually losing the trust of ordinary people. This is because of inaction, being in the position but not doing the job, and everyone being busy making money - who truly cares about this breeding industry that appears unimportant on the surface but is actually very important? Besides, the diseases themselves are complex.
One morning, a tinker came to Li Yuexi's home, a dark-skinned, short middle-aged man; he worked with his head down in silence, his technique somewhat rusty;; he was a fellow weighed down with worries.
Li Yuexi was curious that anyone these days would still run around for a few yuan's worth of business. He asked, "What did you do before?"
The tinker said, "I was a veterinarian."
The answer shocked him, then made him feel a kinship. That morning, veterinarian Li Yuexi met another veterinarian, Chen Zuwei. When the two middle-aged veterinarians' eyes met, they recognised each other's current identity: one a tinker, one a motorcycle taxi driver. At Li Yuexi's doorstep was parked a "Jianshe" brand motorcycle, its frame loose from many falls, its rearview mirror fallen off; this somewhat wobbly motorcycle taxi brought him an income of about 30 yuan a day.
Li Yuexi, who entered the livestock station of Chejiang Township, Hengnan County, Hunan Province in 1984, worked as a veterinarian for more than 20 years. He said, "In the 1980s and 1990s, the livestock station held meetings three times a month, mainly to learn from experience and exchange views; after the 1990s, once a month; after 2000, once a year, and later basically none at all."
Today, the place still bearing the livestock station's signboard is a shop selling feed and medicine. The owners are the station chief and his wife, and of the livestock station's 28 veterinarians, apart from 6 still on duty, the rest, like Li Yuexi and Chen Zuwei, make their living as taxi drivers, rag pickers, small traders, or by going out to work.
The change in Li Yuexi's work is a microcosm of the current state of China's veterinary system. In 2005, an article in the journal China Animal Quarantine argued that China's veterinary management system still follows the model of the planned economy era. The problem of chaotically structured veterinary institutions has reached a very prominent level; due to years of lagging development, the grassroots veterinary system has never developed rapidly, and has now reached a bottleneck. And in some township livestock epidemic prevention stations in Hengnan County, vaccinating farmers' poultry has already been abandoned.
On the other hand, "foot-and-mouth disease", "Streptococcus suis", "avian influenza", "highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome"... the frequent outbreaks of major animal epidemics in recent years, as well as the unusual pork price surge this summer, have tested the same conclusion from two different angles: Li Yuexi said, "In rural areas, grassroots epidemic prevention work is mostly in a state of paralysis."
"We lost the gamble" Within 15 days, of 105 pigs, 70 died. "More than 10 years of hard-earned savings, all lost"
"Pig farming is a gamble, if you're lucky..."
53-year-old farmer Li Shaoyi used this sentence to sum up his 5 years of pig farming experience; the factors he called luck could be listed endlessly: "pigs don't get sick, prices stay balanced, meat prices rise..."
This summer, these factors all manifested in the opposite direction, yet meat prices rose. According to statistics, pork prices, which began soaring in April, repeatedly set 10-year record highs. After pork wholesale prices in mid-May rose by as much as 43% compared with the same period the previous year, on September 11 the Ministry of Agriculture released information that compared with the same period last year, in August pork prices still showed strong momentum, averaging 86.5%. On September 4, Bi Jingquan, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said: "The beneficiaries of the pork price rise are mainly farmers."
"Did you make money?" Sitting on Li Yuexi's motorcycle, this question travelled across Chejiang Township from east to west, extending along the rural road. Li Shaoyi and his wife Wang Fangmei were weeding by the roadside, his pig farm just 10 metres away, now very quiet. Three months earlier, of the 20 sows in the pigsty, more than 10 had died, and more than 100 piglets had not a single survivor; some feverish fattened pigs were also hastily disposed of. He said, "Farming pigs for 5 years, I made 30,000-40,000 yuan, and lost 70,000-80,000 yuan."
If you had a transportation map of Hunan Province in front of you, studying these road networks extending in all directions like capillaries, and then matched it with some data, you would very intuitively see that along these routes, more than 30 million pigs are transported out each year, of which more than 20 million go to Guangzhou.
The starting point of these mighty pig routes is small and medium-sized farmers like Li Shaoyi.
Tan Xiaoying was the second farmer to answer "we lost the gamble." If it had been before June, the answer would have been different: looking at the 105 plump pigs in the pigsty, she would have been calculating the latest round of meat prices in her heart, then beaming with joy, the fattened pigs before her, raised for three months and averaging 125 jin in weight, seeming to become her 26-year-old son's bride-price fund.
Then her pigs began to fall ill, "with persistent high fever, finally collapsing on the ground, without even the strength to move." Tan Xiaoying called over Zeng Huankun, head of the Chejiang Township livestock station, "after medicine and injections, still no improvement."
Within 15 days, of 105 pigs, 70 died. When the other pigs also began to show symptoms of "reddening of the whole body skin, purple bleeding points in the pores, bleeding spots, etc.", Tan Xiaoying sold them to the pig dealers who came to buy, at 500 yuan per pig.
And in March this year, when Tan Xiaoying bought piglets from Changde at 17.4 yuan/jin, each pig weighed more than 20 jin, costing her more than 40,000 yuan. At this time, feed prices also began to rise. Tan Xiaoying and her husband threw themselves wholeheartedly into the pig-farming business, ploughing all the capital they had saved from pig farming before into it. She said, "If the pigs don't die, we'd still make money."
But the final result was that Tan Xiaoying lost the gamble. A month ago, her husband, over 50, found work building roads at a construction site a few kilometres from home. "More than 10 years of hard-earned savings, all lost in a few months."
Tan Xiaoying still has not figured out where the disease came from. This disease, formally named "porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome," broke out last year in provinces including Hunan and Jiangxi, and a new outbreak occurred in Guangdong Province in April this year. Data released by the Ministry of Agriculture at the end of August confirmed that this year a total of 257,000 pigs in 26 provinces across the country were infected with porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, of which 68,000 died.
The losses caused by the larger-scale outbreak last year are not included in the calculation. Since 1980, more than 30 kinds of animal diseases have been introduced from abroad or newly discovered domestically; more than 200 kinds of infectious diseases and more than 900 kinds of parasites have occurred in China, most of which have not been eliminated, and the direct economic losses caused by disease deaths nationwide amount to as much as 23.8 billion yuan each year.
The chaotic township veterinary stations "This is similar to an individually contracted operator, yet its identity is state-owned, carrying out government directives"
When foot-and-mouth disease, Streptococcus suis, avian influenza, high-fever disease... these epidemics that Tan Xiaoying and others had never heard of before took turns appearing in recent years, the functions of rural grassroots livestock stations also changed. Along with the merging of townships (towns) and villages, as the most solid part of the rural animal epidemic prevention system, the personnel of township livestock and veterinary stations were streamlined, and a large number of veterinarians were laid off.
Chen Baixiu, a veterinarian at the Chejiang Township livestock and veterinary station, said that after three townships merged into today's Chejiang Township, the 28 veterinarians were rendered unemployed as if overnight. But Li Yuexi believes it was a slow, drawn-out process. From going to work and holding meetings a few years ago, to later the station chief calling to notify them when there was something to do, to now not hearing a single word from any unit in a whole year. "Gradually fading out of the post, until one day you wake up, get dressed ready to go to work, walk to the door and suddenly realise you're already unemployed, yet you can't find any evidence to prove you're unemployed."
Compared with other government institutions, China's livestock and veterinary stations are a unique system; administrative institutions are rather chaotic in administrative rank and establishment nature, and public institutions in name and functions undertaken.
Zhou Jinsheng, head of the epidemic prevention station of the Hengnan County Livestock Bureau, said, "At the county level it's a civil service establishment, while grassroots townships belong to a self-financing public institution establishment." In this sense, the township livestock and veterinary station is an independently accounting unit. The competent department only provides guidance on business, and takes no responsibility in other respects. "This is similar to an individually contracted operator, yet its identity is state-owned, carrying out government directives."
And with the outbreak of animal epidemics, especially during the large-scale spread of Streptococcus suis and avian influenza in 2005, the epidemic prevention and quarantine functions of livestock and veterinary stations became increasingly important. For example, the Chejiang Township livestock and veterinary station also hung another signboard, "Chejiang Township Animal Epidemic Prevention Station."
"In reality it's one set of personnel, two signboards," Chen Baixiu said. Apart from "the two signboards being given by the government, everything else is earned by the livestock station itself."
The livestock and veterinary station's initial profit channels were collecting vaccine injection service fees and a 3 yuan quarantine fee per pig; now they also include profits from selling feed and veterinary medicine. Chen Baixiu believes the latter's proportion is growing day by day.
Chen Baixiu said the Chejiang Township Animal Epidemic Prevention Station is the best station in Hengnan County; whenever provincial or municipal leaders come to inspect, they are always arranged to come here. In this sense, this place is undoubtedly the best specimen for dissecting the current state of China's rural animal epidemic prevention system. This article comes from the No.1 Pig Farming Network,
This three-storey building was built in 1988, at the busiest southeast corner of Chejiang Township. The ground floor storefront is run by the station chief and his wife, selling veterinary medicine and feed; the second floor is the livestock epidemic prevention station's office, furnished with some simple furniture, and then a meeting room with a long round table. Certificates of merit covering the walls confirm the station's glory days; the animal laboratory next door seems like an open lie. Chen Baixiu said, "Apart from us calling it a laboratory, there's actually nothing inside, just a stool and a table folded up, empty all around, without any equipment."
And in another room called the "Everyone's Happy" recreation room, apart from a square table for playing mahjong, the remaining space is occupied by dust. "Equipment? Yes, there is still some equipment." Chen Baixiu thought for a moment, "When fighting avian influenza, we were issued a white gown, a pair of rain boots, a medicine box, a flashlight, a hand-press sprayer... that's all."
Afterwards, she said proudly, "Our livestock station is the best in Hengnan County; some townships don't even have a building."
This building, on which the government did not spend a single cent, has now become a demonstration site for showcasing grassroots epidemic prevention work. And the most important point is that the government trusts it greatly and resolutely entrusts it with the epidemic prevention and quarantine tasks for 24 villages, 3 neighbourhood committees, as well as military units, factories and mines, and schools, with more than 60,000 head of livestock and more than 1.1 million poultry marketed annually.
Where have the veterinarians gone? After the Streptococcus suis outbreak in 2005, the traditional free-range method began to loosen, and veterinarians found it hard to carry on.
If it happens to be a fine sunny day, or even a rainy day, as long as it's not a thunderstorm, after getting off at Chejiang Township you will immediately be surrounded by a swarm of motorcycle taxis, and Li Yuexi is sure to be among them.
Of the 28 veterinarians in Chejiang Township, in 2005, 15 went out to work, 3 became motorcycle taxi drivers in the township, and some elderly ones, such as the 80-year-old veterinarian Li Wenhua, now make a living by collecting scraps.
Compared with the huge sums the state invests each year in animal epidemic prevention construction, veterinarians have received no care, even though they undertake the concrete implementation of epidemic prevention projects. These veterinarians don't even have a salary. Taking Hengnan County as an example, the county has 547 registered veterinarians, and the government has never needed to consider spending a single cent on these people.
The livestock station, shaped like a contracted responsibility system, has the station chief responsible for all expenditure and control, including the veterinarians' pay.
The veterinarians' main task is vaccine injections in spring and autumn each year, usually divided by assigning each veterinarian responsibility for a certain village's area, collecting service fees and quarantine fees one by one. And the wage model changed with the level of farmers' enthusiasm for breeding: "At first, all fees collected by veterinarians had to be handed in, and the station returned 40 yuan per month as the veterinarian's pay; later, 60 yuan was handed in to the livestock station each month, and the rest of the income belonged to the veterinarian, at which time veterinarians earned about 300 yuan per month in commission; from 2004, even this bit of income ceased to exist. If there was a special epidemic requiring help, the station chief would call the veterinarian over, and however much the pay was for a day, it was settled on the spot, no different from doing odd jobs."
The direct cause of this change was that rural pig farmers, under multiple pressures, began to decline sharply. After the Streptococcus suis outbreak in 2005, the unified pig slaughter system was gradually established, the traditional free-range method began to loosen, and the reduction in pig production left veterinarians in a difficult position.
In May 2004, Hunan Province took the lead nationwide in reforming township livestock and veterinary stations. It required that, according to administrative divisions, township animal epidemic prevention stations undertaking public welfare functions such as animal epidemic prevention be established on the basis of township livestock and veterinary stations, with full-time animal epidemic prevention officers allocated at an average standard of 3 per township.
A total of 8,348 people were hired, entitled to a salary of 6,500 yuan/year, and to various insurances and benefits. This number, for the vast rural veterinary workforce, only made a small portion into the regular ranks. Of Hengnan County's 547 veterinarians, only 131 were included in the quota. According to policy, veterinarians who were not resolved were to be diverted and disbanded on their own.
Like the chronic problems encountered in the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, this batch of veterinarians faces a bleak old age. "Back then I was recruited into the livestock station as a formal worker, which resolved my urban household registration, and I worked as a veterinarian for decades, until I was laid off and sent back, only to find there was no pension insurance, unemployment insurance, or social medical insurance at all." Of course, they also cannot return to farming in the countryside, and are not even included in the local minimum living security system.
In a text message, Xie Yangsheng, a veterinarian in Jinweizhou Township, Hengnan County, recounted a veterinarian's life: "I apprenticed to learn the trade in 1981, and joined the livestock and veterinary station of Qingyun Township, Lijiang District in 1989 to this day. Every epidemic prevention task included me, and on August 21, 1980 I paid 160 yuan in management fees to the veterinary station. On December 18, 1991, when the Hengnan County Livestock Bureau built a new office building, I contributed 200 yuan and 50 days of voluntary labour. On March 16, 1994 I paid the Livestock Bureau a 420 yuan regularisation fee and a 5 yuan magazine subscription fee." All these contributions, by November 6, 1994, were exchanged for a "Hunan Province Veterinary Practice Licence." But in the 2004 reform, he belonged to the majority who were not included in the quota.
40-year-old Xie Yangsheng stood on the town's street. That day was the first day of school at the town's middle school; after registering his daughter, he returned the way he came. The rain had not stopped, and Xie Yangsheng looked around blankly. Around a street corner was the rented premises of the Jinweizhou Township livestock and veterinary station; he had not received a task for 2 years.
Three days after the feed factory's expert came to treat them, all the pigs that had been given the vaccine the expert recommended died
The veterinarians are all busy making a living, and the newly established township animal epidemic prevention station, as Chen Baixiu said, is merely an extra signboard.
Chejiang Township winds along a long, narrow road; the busiest central section is no more than 1,000 metres, yet 5 feed stores are doing business there, and some villages also have their own feed agencies. In appearance and function, these feed stores are no different from the livestock and veterinary stations. They are all in competition, and most importantly, whatever the livestock station has, the feed stores also have, such as veterinary medicine and diagnosis and treatment of some animal diseases. In Chejiang Township, many feed stores, such as He Meilian, owner of the He Meilian Veterinary Medicine Store, are themselves veterinarians at the township livestock and veterinary station, and are on par with them in treating and injecting.
The commercial character of township livestock and veterinary stations has blurred their public welfare functions,Pig farmingfarmer He Liang complained that the price information provided by the government is neither comprehensive nor accurate, "they are simply also promoting their medicine and feed." Therefore, farmers usually rely on information heard in feed stores to judge the future direction of the market.
Based on information gleaned from feed stores, at the end of June, He Liang bought 318 piglets from Xinshao County. At this time, stimulated by rising meat prices, piglet prices rose across the board, 490 yuan/head for the large ones, 420 yuan/head for the smaller ones. He said, "Before we raised pigs on surplus grain, now we throw the entire family fortune in for a gamble."
More than 10 days after buying them, the piglets began to fall ill, with red and swollen eyes and unsteady walking. He Liang found a local feed sales agency. In rural areas, pork prices stimulated farmers' enthusiasm for breeding, and also pushed competition among feed manufacturers to a climax. Feed manufacturers promised: any farmer who bought that brand of feed, when their pigs showed certain difficult symptoms, would be sent an expert free of charge to diagnose.
In the farmers' eyes, these experts bearing the title of professor even replaced the veterinarians of the township livestock stations. On the 3rd day after He Liang's piglets fell ill, the feed manufacturer sent an expert surnamed Wang to the village. After catching 2 piglets, the expert found he had forgotten to bring his tools, so he told He Liang to go buy blades for castrating pigs.
The whole dissection process lasted 3 hours; the liver, stomach, heart, lungs, and intestines were taken out of the pig's abdominal cavity one by one, and then the expert turned and left without saying anything.
He Liang saw him to the village entrance, and could not help asking about the diagnosis. The expert said it was oedema disease and Streptococcus. Then the expert wrote a prescription and told He Liang to go get the medicine. After buying more than 300 yuan worth of medicine, the piglets slowly died. Three days later, He Liang went to the He Meilian Veterinary Medicine Store in town; the owner called to consult an expert, and a professor said to be from Hunan Agricultural University gave a prescription over the phone. After He Liang immediately bought the medicine and went back to inject it, the number of feverish pigs increased from 8 to more than 40.
He hurried to the He Meilian Veterinary Medicine Store, and the expert explained over the phone that fever in pigs is normal, don't worry about it, "the first day is a vaccine reaction, the second day it will ease, the third day basically stable."
Three days later, all the pigs that had been given the vaccine the expert recommended died. Of the 318 pigs, in less than a month, only 91 remained.
Cases in which the vaccine prescriptions given by feed manufacturers' experts led to the death of most of the pigs also occurred amongpig farmingfarmers Wang Xiangfa, He Jiming, and He Jixue. When of 48 pigs only 12 remained, He Jiming finally saw on the feed manufacturer's materials brought by the expert that it clearly stated: after pigs show fever symptoms, injecting the vaccine not only does not work, but actually accelerates death.
"Pigs died every day, and every day we carried the pigs to the back hill to bury them; they died for a full week." He Jiming said bitterly. He questioned the feed store owner He Meilian, "The materials state it very clearly, doesn't the expert have even this bit of common sense?"
"The expert must be real; the person came all the way from Changsha, and doesn't even charge you money, would they really cheat you?" He Meilian said.
The abandoned defence line "Apart from collecting the ear tag fee, we haven't vaccinated farmers' pigs and poultry for two years"
Luo Sanyuan, a veterinarian in Chashi Township, said there are more and more diseased pigs and chickens in rural areas, and the township livestock and veterinary stations cannot escape responsibility. "This is not alarmist talk. Because there is no refrigeration equipment, after the vaccines are collected from the county seat and distributed to the veterinarians, by the time the veterinarians go door to door to inject them, more than a week has passed, and most of the vaccines have already lost their effectiveness; secondly, many veterinarians' skills have not been updated. Most rural grassroots veterinarians graduated from agricultural schools, or learned through apprenticeship. Before the 1970s there were still training classes, but after the 1980s there was almost no professional training, and they cannot diagnose sudden outbreaks."
These veterinarians, who have walked the countryside all their lives, also realise that for today's young people, this profession is becoming less and less attractive. "More than a decade ago no one was willing to do this work anymore," Chen Baixiu and her husband are both veterinarians, but their son is extremely tired of this line of work. "Even going to Guangzhou to work is better than being a veterinarian," he said.
"They only show up when you buy pigs, in order to collect a 5 yuan ear tag fee per pig." Farmer Tan Xiaoying evaluated veterinarians this way. The button-like plastic tag nailed to the pig's ear symbolises that it has passed quarantine by the animal epidemic prevention department and can circulate on the market.
Wang Jiucheng, the 57-year-old accountant at the Chejiang Township livestock and veterinary station, said the cost of each pig's ear tag is about 2 jiao, the livestock station's purchase price from the county livestock bureau is 8 jiao, then it distributes them to veterinarians at 2 yuan, and the veterinarians collect a 3 yuan (raised to 5 yuan from this year) ear tag fee from each pig farmer.
"In Jinweizhou Township, apart from collecting the ear tag fee, we haven't vaccinated farmers' pigs and poultry for two years." Veterinarian Chen Zuwei said. Jinweizhou Township has 33 villages and more than 28,000 people. In 2004, after the reform of township livestock and veterinary stations in Hunan Province, the Jinweizhou livestock and veterinary station had only one epidemic prevention officer, Liu Xiangdong; the station chief Chen Siqing had his qualification cancelled because he was reported for having a second child in violation of the policy.
Liu Xiangdong's wife told the reporter by phone that Liu had gone to Guangzhou to work last year, and this year had only come back once, staying at home for two days before leaving again.
"During the epidemic prevention period, Liu Xiangdong still came back to give the vaccines." Chen Siqing said, a man with an annual salary of only 6,500 yuan, if he doesn't go out to find some work, how can he support his family?
Chen Siqing felt aggrieved at his own situation. He said, "I had a daughter in 1999; when my son was born in 1996, I still had a rural household registration and could have a second child." This middle-aged man, who had been station chief at the Jinweizhou Township livestock and veterinary station since 2001, is now in a difficult position, "as the station chief, yet not a formal worker."
On January 10, 2006, he submitted a report to the county livestock and aquatic products bureau requesting an increase in staffing, which has since gone unanswered. These circumstances have clearly affected his work morale. "After 2005, the foot-and-mouth disease vaccine was only given to specialised pig farmers; this year we didn't do it (the vaccine) for free-range households."
The livestock and veterinary station's account books were lost long ago, and a 252L Osepu freezer issued by the county livestock and aquatic products bureau in 2000 was also turned off because it consumed 2 kilowatt-hours of electricity a day. Chen Siqing believes it doesn't matter whether things are done well or badly; he has thought about giving up.
But Chen Zuwei remembers that in April last year, after discovering that farmers in Jinweizhou Township had not been vaccinated, he called the provincial livestock and aquatic products general station. In early May, two people came from the province and gave the preventive injections. But the autumn preventive injections were not given. In April this year, Chen Zuwei called twice more, and this time there was no news at all.
Let small-scale farmers fade out of the market. Du Mei, who raises several thousand pigs, is one of the beneficiaries, yet he repeats what the small-scale farmers say: "Pig farmingis a gamble."
From this summer's pork price rise, Zhang Yongliang, director of the Hengyang Municipal Livestock and Aquatic Products Bureau, saw the precursor of a structural change in breeding. Like officials of the Hunan Provincial Livestock and Aquatic Products Bureau, they believe the problems in the veterinary system are gradually improving, and that the most important thing now is that Hunan Province's pork supply remains stable.
"Through market elimination, letting small-scale farmers fade out of the market is not necessarily a bad thing." He said, "Facts have proven that only large pig farmers made money in this price fluctuation."
According to this claim, Hengyang local Du Mei is one of the beneficiaries, but he does not think so, "I'm making money from dead and diseased pigs; the more pigs die, the more I make."
More than 10 kilometres from the urban area of Hengyang is Du Mei'spig farmingfarm. A rural road covered in fallen leaves, wide and potholed, leads straight to a courtyard converted from a state-owned chicken farm abandoned in the 1990s. There the iron gate is tightly shut all year round, and high walls cut it off from the outside world. After calling to verify identity, you walk as instructed through a side door into a long, narrow passage and stand for 5 minutes; the sprayer overhead automatically sprays Bus disinfectant down, soaking you all over. Then you enter a closed single room, turn on the fluorescent light, and the whole room is filled with pale purple glow. "This is genuine ultraviolet light, it can kill germs brought in from outside." Du Mei said, taking a 100-yuan renminbi note from his wallet and holding it under the light; the anti-counterfeiting watermark on the note is clearly visible. This process also includes filling in a detailed visitor registration form. Even after the large truck delivering feed drives up, it also needs to be disinfected and wait at the gate. The whole disinfection process takes about 20 minutes.
Four households live at the pig farm, their food, clothing, housing and transport all within this closed system; their only work is caring for several thousand pigs - including more than 400 sows. The pig farmers realise that "self-breeding and self-raising is an effective way to cut off maternal transmission."
Du Mei's pig farm represents the government's new direction for macro-control of the breeding industry - "promoting standardised, large-scale breeding." Zhang Yongliang, director of the Hengyang Municipal Livestock and Aquatic Products Bureau, said, "Over three years, Hengyang City has already achieved more than 5,000 farms of over one hundred pigs in scale; we are ahead of the whole country."
Next, Hengyang, as the pig industry base of Hunan Province, a major pig-producing province nationwide, will double the number of hundred-pig-scale farms within two years.
"Letting small-scale farmers gradually be eliminated in the market, facts have proven that this model can be replicated; large pig farms have a capital base and technical investment." Zhang Yongliang admits that some large farms' professional knowledge and veterinary technology far exceed those of township livestock and veterinary stations.
"They hire university technical talent at high salaries, have their own laboratories, and mix their own feed; these are all things we cannot compare with." Said the highest leader of Hengyang City's livestock system.
Nevertheless, the relationship between the government and large farms still needs communication. At Du Mei's pig farm, the farm manager, over 40, has some views about local officials, because officials gave out the state's interest-free loan quotas for supporting the breeding industry to relatives and friends based on favouritism. "No one knows how they operated it; we didn't get a single cent."
"Everything depends on ourselves; no one helps me, no one reminds me when to vaccinate, how big market demand is, what epidemics are prevalent this year."
Large farms have an advantage in market forecasting, but the problem is that they too find it hard to get the information they need to make scientific decisions. No one releases information or early-warning analysis. They worry that once any kind of epidemic breaks out, everything before them will be reduced to nothing.
“Pig farmingis a gamble," Du Mei repeated what the small-scale farmers say. This year he won a round, "but luck can't always be this good."
Veterinarians' livelihood
Hengnan County has 547 registered veterinarians, and the government has never needed to consider spending a single cent on these people. In May 2004, Hunan Province took the lead nationwide in reforming township livestock and veterinary stations, streamlining the personnel of township livestock and veterinary stations, and a large number of veterinarians were laid off. Of Hengnan County's 547 veterinarians, only 131 were included in the quota, becoming the regular ranks. According to policy, veterinarians who were not resolved were to be diverted and disbanded on their own. Most of them face a bleak old age.
The livestock station, shaped like a contracted responsibility system, has the station chief responsible for all expenditure and control, including the veterinarians' pay. Against this background, the commercial character of township livestock and veterinary stations gradually blurred their public welfare functions.
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Sigh, the government is not doing its job!
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What is said makes a lot of sense. The level and interests of grassroots veterinarians, etc., lead to drug abuse; veterinarians can't wait to prescribe more medicine to farmers..... The consequences are very serious. Strongly support the original poster's view.
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It's heartbreaking to see! This is our current situation!
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It simply shocks me
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The truth, it's all the truth!
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After reading the whole article carefully, I feel sorrow and pain, and ponder: whose fault is this? Where has the State Council's 2005 "Opinions on the Reform of the Veterinary Management System" been put?
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Alas! Apart from sighing, what else can be said? Which department can truly implement good policies in place?
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Paying attention; the grassroots veterinary system needs to be improved
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The analysis is very thorough
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It's heartbreaking to watch~~~~
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In this article, apart from your sympathy for grassroots veterinarians, I can't see any other meaning.
You should be clear that preventing and treating livestock and poultry diseases would be meaningless even if grassroots veterinarians were restored to their former state. Even rebuilding a large-scale veterinary organisation would likewise fail. Because the current reality is: any official organisation is gradually losing the trust of ordinary people. This is because of inaction, being in the position but not doing the job, and everyone being busy making money - who truly cares about this breeding industry that appears unimportant on the surface but is actually very important? Besides, the diseases themselves are complex.