FARMERS in China are reportedly breeding giant pigs as big as polar bears to combat pork shortages after an African swine fever outbreak.
One monster pig weighing 78 stone or 500kg (1,102lbs) has been reared in Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi province.
The beast is just one of a herd being bred to become giant swine by farmer Pang Cong, according to Bloomberg.
Fat pigs are now big business after a mass cull of Chinese pigs in the wake of the epidemic sent pork prices surging by more than 70% this year.
If they weigh more than 1,100lbs, the pigs can sell for 10,000 yuan or £1,135 ($1,400), three times higher than region’s monthly average disposable income.
Adult pigs can grow to a wide variety of sizes, typically weighing between 300 and 700lbs (317kg).
But Cong’s monster pigs are comparable in size to polar bears, which weigh around 775 to 1,200lbs (544kg) on average.
The biggest domestic pig on record was Big Bill from Jackson, Tennessee, which weighed 2,552lbs.
Big Bill had to be put down before it could travel to the Chicago World Fair in 1933 because it broke its leg from carrying all of its weight.
The giant pigs are being bred during a desperate time for China.
A devastating outbreak of African swine fever sparked widespread pork shortages in China, which is the world’s largest consumer of the meat.
Chinese farmers had to kill a third of their supply after the outbreak decimated the nation’s hog herd.
The Chinese government warned that supply will be “extremely severe” in the first half of 2020 following the epidemic.
So farmers in the pork-loving country have been urged to boost production to meet demand.
Small farmers and large pork companies in the country are gearing toward growing bigger pigs, attempting to increase the average weight by 14% to boost profits by 30%.
They want to raise them “as big as possible,” said Zhao Hailin, one hog farmer told Bloomberg.
Despite drastic efforts, experts have predicted that by the end of 2019, China’s production of pork could be cut in half as a result of the outbreak.
African Swine Fever is not the same as ‘swine flu’.
The disease is harmless to humans, but it can spread through contaminated pork products or the clothes of people working with infected pigs.
It does not travel through the air, but it’s long-lived and hard to get rid of — which Chinese farmers are learning the hard way.
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