Difficulties and Countermeasures in Harmless Treatment of Infected Pig Carcasses

Mingquan LI

Nanchong City Committee Office of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Nanchong 637000, China

Abstract This paper introduced the difficulties in the handling of infected pig carcasses, such as difficulty in finding, difficulty in collection and transportation, difficulty in facility construction, and difficulty in monitoring and supervision, etc. The reasons for these difficulties are shortcomings in the top-level design of the policy to the specific measures at the grassroots level. In view of these shortcomings, the author came up with some pertinent recommendations, including improving relevant regulations and policy measures, establishing a sound system and network for the collection, transportation and processing of infected pig carcasses, reinforcing punishment and strengthening linkage and cooperation between departments.

Key words Infected pig carcasses, Harmless treatment, Difficulties, Countermeasures

1 Introduction

In recent years, governments at all levels have attached great importance to the environmental protection and the harmless treatment of infected pig carcasses, which has alleviated the pollution of swine breeding. However, from the perspective of the whole country, there are still problems in the harmless treatment of infected pig carcasses in some places, the phenomenon of throwing infected pig carcasses without treatment, and frequent occurrence of the sale and processing of diseased and dead pig carcasses. The dead pig pork incident in Gaoan of Jiangxi Province in 2014 once again sounded the alarm for the harmless treatment of infected pig carcasses. Centering on the difficulties and problems confronted in the treatment of infected pig carcasses, we carried out a survey and analysis and found that the harmless treatment of infected pig carcasses still faces many difficulties.

2 Difficulties in treatment of infected pig carcasses

2.1 Difficulties in finding

At present, the swine breeding methods mainly include large-scale breeding and small individual breeding. In the individual breeding, small swine breeders lack awareness of environmental protection. After the death of pigs, they have no habit of reporting to the veterinary department, and they just throw out infected pig carcasses carelessly. In rural areas where pigs are bred, corrupted pig carcasses can be seen everywhere, and some breeders even sell those carcasses secretly. In large-scale breeding farms, after death of sick pigs, carcasses are generally treated by the breeding farms. Most breeding farms can carry out harmless treatment in accordance with veterinary hygiene requirements. However, in consideration of economic interests, a small number of breeding owners (breeding enterprises) concealed the news of the death of sick pigs, illegally transferred the infected pig carcasses or conducted secret transaction, causing some sick and dead pig pork to flow into the dining table, thereby affecting the quality of pork foods. Due to the lack of tough methods for the reporting system and the harmless treatment of infected pig carcasses, it is very difficult to find infected pig carcasses.

2.2 Difficulties in collection and transportation

The government and competent departments have not established or improved the collection and transportation system for infected pig carcasses, and there is no professional specialized organization for collecting and transporting the infected pig carcasses, nor is there any specialized transportation equipment. As a result, dead pig carcasses of breeders are either thrown around, exposed to the front of the house or near the water source, polluting the environment and drinking water, or being treated by some illegal traders and finally enter the market and into the dinning table. Infected pig carcasses belong to special items, are easy to spread swine disease, if not in accordance with the procedures for transport, it is easy to cause the spread of swine disease, resulting in epidemic, the consequences are unimaginable. Therefore, at this stage, it is very difficult to concentrate scattered infected pig carcasses and transport them to designated locations for harmless treatment.

2.3 Difficulties in construction of treatment facilities

Whether it is scattered or centralized treatment of infected pig carcasses, it is required to construct the necessary facilities and treatment sites. When choosing to build a centralized treatment site, because some people do not understand that the waste generated during harmless treatment will again pollute the environment, affect human health, thus they refuse the government to build treatment facilities for infected pig carcasses nearby. Planning and construction of treatment facilities is difficult to put into place, especially in large and medium-sized cities, the government is in an awkward situation, on the one hand, land prices are expensive, the government is difficult to make up its mind to plan land dedicated to the construction of treatment facilities for infected pig carcasses, on the other hand, even if the land is approved, the government has no special funds to invest in construction. According to our survey, in recent years, the sick and dead pig carcasses harmless treatment subsidy funds of both central and provincial departments are basically in full, but the county-level government’s subsidy supporting funds are not put into place due to shortage of local financial funds. The harmless treatment of infected pig carcasses is a public utility, and is conducive to protecting the environment and maintaining human health, and has good social benefits, but the direct economic benefits of treating infected pig carcasses are weak, and the daily maintenance costs of treatment facilities and sites after completion are huge, social funds are unwilling to intervene in them, and it is difficult to attract social capital. Therefore, in the absence of more fund support, it is very difficult to build a scientific, reasonable and sound layout of infected pig carcasses treatment facilities and sites, and it is difficult to achieve harmless treatment simply relying the competent authorities.

2.4 Difficulties in monitoring and supervision

The monitoring and supervision of the harmless treatment of dead pigs is directly related to the quality of the completion of the treatment of infected pig carcasses, but it is still very difficult to do this work well in the process of production practice. In the first place, the competent authorities, in addition to large-scale breeding, scattered individual breeders are widely distributed, the distance is long, and they have no financial and technical strength to prompt find, collect and transport infected pig carcasses. In the second place, some individual breeders (enterprises) are driven by interests, deliberately conceal the transfer of dead pig carcasses, buy, sell, process and operate infected pig carcasses through secret transaction, and jointly evade the supervision and investigation of the competent authorities together with operators. In the third place, pig carcasses are easy to transport, processing and treating, the profit is high, underground processing plants (farms) repeatedly appear, illegal traders have the sense of being lucky, objectively there are dead pig carcasses trading and processing of the "black gold chain". The competent authorities play "cat and mouse" game with them, competent authorities often fail, which is why the competent authorities fail to prevent sick pig pork flowing to the market despite taking a lot of measures.

3 Reasons and countermeasures

The above difficulties reflect that the harmless treatment of infected pig carcasses still has a long way to go. From the top design of policy to the specific measures at the grass-roots level, there are still shortcomings and deficiencies. Laws and regulations are not matched, the specific grass-roots operational measures are difficult to put in place, both breeding owners (enterprises) are indifferent to the environmental protection, local governments and competent authorities are lazy and weak, regulatory measures are not strict, punishment is not in place, and driven by interests, illegal operation is difficult to fight. Therefore, it is recommended to take following measures in the harmless treatment of infected pig carcasses. (i) It is recommended to improve relevant regulations and policy measures, so that the breeders and the whole society will establish the awareness that breeding must protect the environment, improve the harmless treatment awareness of the diseased pig carcasses. (ii) It is necessary to establish and improve systems and networks for the collection, transport and treatment of infected pig carcasses and establish specialized permanent institutions for urgent use. (iii) It is required to establish an efficient supervision team, reinforce the punishment for handling illegal incidents, and crack down on the illegal acquisition, transportation, processing and sale of the sick and dead pig carcasses with the concepts of "iron wrists" and "administration with strict laws and regulations". (iv) It is recommended to strengthen departmental linkage and coordination, further implement the responsibilities of departments and governments at all levels, increase policy support for the harmless treatment of infected pig carcasses, urge the implementation of the existing incentives, further mobilize the enthusiasm of breeding owners (enterprises) to treat infected pig carcasses harmlessly, and effectively achieve swine breeding and environmental protection, and promote the sustained, stable and healthy development of swine breeding industry.