Environmentalists protest against pork pact being negotiated between Argentina and China

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Environmentalist organizations protested this Wednesday in Buenos Aires against an agreement between Argentina and China for large-scale pork production in the South American country.

The environmental groups mobilized to the headquarters of the Chinese embassy in Buenos Aires. They expressed their repudiation of the pork agreement being negotiated with China and warned about the “collapse” the planet is approaching due to the climate and ecological crisis.

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For Flavia Broffoni, activist of the organization Rebelión o Extinción Argentina, the agreement with China will imply “developing the largest animal industrialization project in the history of Argentina to export pigs to a country that decided to de-territorialize its production due to African swine fever”.

Environmental organizations reject the possible installation of gigantic pig farms in Argentina to export meat to China, among other reasons, because of the “high sanitary risk” that this large-scale practice would entail.

“In 2019 in China, 400 million pigs were burned alive due to African swine flu. What would happen if that happens in Argentina? The unsanitary conditions of mega-farms make pigs depressed and constantly generate diseases,” said in a statement Climate Save Argentina, one of the organizations that called for the protest.

The environmentalists also warn that the farms would consume 1.5 million liters of water per day and require millions of tons of feed for the pigs in a country where the population has problems accessing water, and a large percentage is poor.

They also state that the pigs will be raised in tiny cages, in conditions of “animal abuse and insalubrity”, and generating greenhouse gases that aggravate global warming.

“Millions of animals in cages, locked up in a very violent way, will produce pollution with their feces in the environment,” warned Alejandro Bodart, leader of the Socialist Workers Movement, a political force that is part of the Ecosocialist Network, to Efe.

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According to Bodart, the agreement, which in his opinion will be “disastrous” for the environment, has already been signed. Still, in the current electoral campaign scenario, the government is delaying the announcement due to the “great rejection” of environmentalists.

Official sources consulted by Efe denied that the agreement had been signed.

Two weeks ago, Argentine President Alberto Fernandez assured that his country would not produce pork “in a way that contaminates the environment”.

“Everything that is done must be done with environmental preservation. That is clear to me. If the agreement is that they come to produce pigs willy-nilly without worrying about the environment, that is not going to happen”, said the head of state in an interview with the Filo News portal.

In an interview with Efe, Broffoni observed that Fernández “says that a productive model that harms the environment will not be developed, but the problem lies in knowing what an environmental problem implies for the State” and what the Government understands by “environmental protection”.

According to the most recent data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), China is the world’s main buyer of pork.

According to a report by the consulting firm IES, in the first semester of this year, Argentine pork exports grew 55.6% year-on-year in value (45 million dollars) and 27.8% in quantity (22,800 tons), with China as the main driver of foreign demand.