China's dead pig scandal ushers in hard times for fishermen, farmers
Livelihoods are forced to enter a new era as story of rotting pigs in Jiaxing's rivers hit headlines
After a day’s work cleaning the river, fisherwoman Zhao Zhugen returned to her village outside Shanghai with a boatload of rubbish and green algae – no pig carcasses this time.
“All I dragged out was the usual rubbish. I saw more dead pigs in the water this time last year,” said Zhao, 58, who was hired to clean the Pinghutang, a tributary of Huangpu River that made headlines in March when about 20,000 dead pigs were found floating in Shanghai’s drinking-water source.
Dumping pigs in the rivers is not news for us
Pinghutang is the main river that flows into “the pig triangle” – an area bordered by the towns of Xinfeng, Pinghu and seaside Haiyan that has dominated pig production on the Yangtze River Delta for three decades. It joins the Huangpu River 60 kilometres downstream from Xinfeng, which took much of the blame for the dead pigs after ear tags were traced to its villages.
The dead pig scandal has dredged up problems associated with water pollution and pig farming in China, but behind the headlines, the story has had a cascading effect on the troubles of the fishermen and pig farmers in the region.
Zhao’s cleaning job started early last year when local authorities hired fishermen to clean already polluted waterways. She called the work “tough” and said she had witnessed the decline of the environment in the last two decades. Pig manure and carcasses were a familiar sight in the waters.
“It was quite common to see dead pigs dumped on riverbanks and along roadsides, even at this time of the year,” said Zhao.