Black mountain pigs gain market popularity through fitness, selling at higher prices
"This year, the price of live black mountain pigs is 20 yuan per jin. Slaughtered black mountain pigs can sell for 30 yuan per jin right at home. If smoked into cured meat, even better, it sells for 45 yuan per jin. And companies from the Chengdu direction want over a thousand black mountain pigs at 20 yuan per jin for live pigs, but we don't have any to offer, let alone those from the Zhejiang direction, because the surrounding villagers who come to buy can't even be satisfied. Some who couldn't buy got angry, and I've offended quite a few relatives and friends!" villager Zheng Yinfeng of Mahu Village, Yingshan Town, Xuyong County, said happily to this writer.
Why are these black mountain pigs so popular? It turns out their pigs are all free-range, up on the mountain 365 days a year. It's common for them to eat wild Gastrodia elata, Bupleurum chinense, Ophiopogon japonicus, Plantago asiatica, Houttuynia cordata, Lonicera japonica, Artemisia absinthium, Rheum officinale and other Chinese medicinal herbs, and they drink natural mountain spring water. This not only increases the pigs' exercise and reduces their fat content, but the pigs they raise never get sick. However, it takes a year of feeding for a pig to reach about 250 jin. They feed a little cornmeal in the morning and evening, letting the pigs eat only until 60 percent full. At dawn they drive the pigs up the mountain, and at night the pigs know to come home on their own. Pigs raised this way are not only healthy but also have delicious meat and an excellent taste.
Breaking the traditional farming model, fitness black mountain pigs are in ever-growing demand
In 2009, Zheng Yinfeng bought 200 improved white-haired pigs from Longchang, Sichuan, for confined pen feeding. "That year I thought I could make a nice profit, but who knew the 2009 live pig market was bad, and they could only sell for 3 to 5 yuan per jin. That year corn was 1.2 yuan per jin. After a tiring year, not only did I lose my own labor, I lost terribly, a full loss of 100,000 yuan. After getting sick once, I decided not to raise pigs anymore." When Zheng Yinfeng talked about this period, there were still tears in her eyes.
Zheng Yinfeng's husband, Li Tunyi, is a forestry worker at the state-owned Banbianshan Forest Farm in Xuyong County. He often heard leaders say at meetings that raising pigs under the forest has benefits: it can reduce the amount of grain used, and let the pigs weed, loosen the soil, and appropriately fertilize for the trees, forming a mutually beneficial pig-forest symbiotic system, reducing manual management, and also increasing workers' income. Li Tunyi and two other workers managed more than 10,000 mu of forest land at the state-owned Banbianshan Forest Farm. The leaders' words moved the couple again. Why not use this more than 10,000 mu of forest land for pig farming? So the two decided to try farming once more. This idea received strong support and help from the leaders of the state-owned Banbianshan Forest Farm. But this time they did not use confined pen feeding; instead they used free-range farming. If they still lost money, they would never raise pigs again.
In 2010, the couple bought 5 local black sows from Shuiliu Township, Xuyong County, to raise. "By 2011, these 5 sows had successively given birth to nearly 100 piglets (locally called yacha pigs). We sold 50 to nearby villagers and raised 48 ourselves. When these piglets grew to 50 jin, we drove them up the mountain. Except when it rained heavily or hailed, even on snowy days these pigs stayed on the mountain surviving by eating wild grass, insects, grass roots and so on. Using this ecological farming method not only saved grain every day, but the pigs were moving around on the mountain all day long, and could often eat Gastrodia elata, Bupleurum chinense, Ophiopogon japonicus, Plantago asiatica, Houttuynia cordata, Lonicera japonica, Artemisia absinthium, Rheum officinale and so on. Therefore our pigs never got sick, and the pork was reassuring to eat." In 2011, these 48 pigs were all sold at 15 yuan per jin for live pigs, a full double the price of locally pen-raised black pigs. After deducting costs and not counting labor, they earned 90,000 yuan. In 2012 they raised 70 black mountain pigs, and the couple earned more than 130,000 yuan.
"But some consumers pointed out that this local black pig has thick fat and tastes a bit greasy. In 2013 we bought 5 local sows from Longchang, Sichuan, and also spent 4,000 yuan at the Leshan Matia Breeding Pig Farm in Sichuan to buy one Duroc breeding boar. Through crossbreeding with the sows from Longchang and Shuiliu, the offspring had less fat, more delicious meat, and tasted oily but not greasy. From 2013 to 2015, the price of black mountain pigs basically did not change much, staying between 15 yuan and 16 yuan per jin for live pigs. The pigs we raised ourselves were basically 70-80 per year, and in these three years alone we earned nearly 400,000 yuan."
"In 2016, pig prices rose, and black mountain pigs rose to 20 yuan per jin for live pigs, but corn was still 1.1 yuan per jin. Our family raised 100 black mountain pigs and sold 100 piglets. After deducting costs and not counting the labor invested, we earned 240,000 yuan in that one year alone. And many companies from the Chengdu and Zhejiang directions came one after another to sign contracts to buy black mountain pigs, but they can only wait in line until next year. However, next year we'll have to expand the scale of farming!" Li Tunyi said proudly.
Rich but not forgetting to help the poor, leading the villagers to get rich together
Zheng Yinfeng was originally a women's cadre in Mahu Village, Yingshan Town. After making money herself, in 2013 she repeatedly persuaded the surrounding villagers to go into farming with her, and sold piglets weighing 50 jin each to local poor households at a discount of 100 yuan per pig. But some villagers were timid and afraid of losing money, and simply would not participate. Some bought only one or two piglets for confined pen feeding, to slaughter for their own families to eat during the New Year, which could not form any scale at all. In 2014, local villagers bought only 20 piglets from Zheng Yinfeng's home, and the remaining more than 100 piglets were all sold toward Xuyong and Luzhou. In 2015, when some villagers visited their home and tasted their black mountain pork, word spread from one to ten and ten to a hundred. Local villagers bought 100 piglets, among which 4 targeted poor households also bought 6 piglets from them. In 2015, not a single piglet was sold outside the area.
In 2016 the couple also bought 5 sows in Longchang on behalf of local poor households. Because pig prices were high that year, sows were hard to buy, and 8 poor households still had not managed to buy any. At the time of this writer's interview, the couple was still constantly contacting pig farmers in the Longchang direction. Li Tunyi said that after the biogas pits were all built, he would still go to Longchang to continue helping poor households buy sows.
In the 7 years since the couple began raising live pigs in 2009, they have spent more than 200,000 yuan on local hired labor, providing work for some of the local surplus labor force.