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Buford12 t1_jbfuz0r wrote

For the life of me I can not see How that facility is commercially viable. Pork is cheap, right now the price for fat hogs on the hoof, in the U.S. is 85 cents a pound, and that is up 40 cents from 18 months ago. Unless this facility gets some kind of market protection, I just don't see how the numbers work.

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noxx1234567 t1_jbi5vlr wrote

China imports a lot of pork , this facility might be a test run for industrial scale farming to cut out all imports of food

It's not about profit , it's about Strategic food security

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Buford12 t1_jbj7vjw wrote

I under stand that. But if you built a one story facility out of the city it's initialization cost would have to be less than half the cost. Plus 2 million hogs would require a large amount of energy for refrigeration and ventilation to maintain a viable environment.
Then also you have just added 2 million residents to the city's water and sewer systems.

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noxx1234567 t1_jbjay2y wrote

Industrial scale farming has a lot of logistical and scaling advantages over traditional farms .Energy is cheap in china

They probably have their own effluent treatment and recycling plants

Then again this is probably a prototype facility to research and further improve any negatives. If it's successful they can replicate it all over the country and be independent of imported food

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Buford12 t1_jbjmhk5 wrote

Well they would be importing grain rather than pork. Unless they currently export grain.

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noxx1234567 t1_jbjts8x wrote

Grain can be important from multiple countries , it's not as important . Russia alone has a lot of unused farm land to produce enough grain for china

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