Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu yesterday urged local authorities to make
more efforts to ensure pork supplies and food safety.
Hui told a teleconference that local governments should subsidize and
encourage pig breeding, including unveiling insurance for sows to boost pork
supply.
The wholesale price of pork in China surged 74.6 percent in June from the
same period last year due to price hikes in feedstuff and outbreaks of blue ear
pig disease. It helped push up the nation's inflation to the 33-month-high of
4.4 percent in June.
There are concerns that some farmers may became unwilling to raise pigs for
fear of economic losses as sows and piglets are easily susceptible to the highly
contagious disease.
Hui called for tighter animal disease controls, mandatory immunization and a
ban on culling, eating, selling and transporting of poultry and livestock killed
by contagious diseases.
The vice premier also called for stronger supervision of food safety
standards.
Food safety is a major concern of the Chinese public after a spate of food
scares from parasite-infested snails to ducks and hens that were fed
cancer-causing Sudan Red dye to make their egg yolks red.