In the summer of 1996, Felipe Solá, Secretary of Agriculture, hastily authorized the sowing of transgenic seeds in Argentina, without even translating the documents from English to Spanish. Now, there is a possibility that Argentina may become China’s leading livestock “producer”, however what may seem like good business could potentially bring tough consequences on the land itself, on Argentina’s citizens as a whole, and worsen the already horrific conditions within livestock farms.

While some details of the production agreement are still awaiting confirmation, it is important to consider what this would mean for Argentina. For starters, the amount of pigs in the country is currently between 6 and 7 million, but in order to provide for China, the world’s leading pork consumer, it would have to produce roughly 100 million.

Earlier this year, China suffered from an outbreak of African swine fever, a highly contagious illness that affects pigs and produces varying reactions in each animal. If an animal contracts the virus, their meat can not be sold, rendering hundreds of thousands of pigs in China “useless.”

China has the highest rate of pork consumption in the world, having around 450 million animals in production. In order to control the outbreak, the country has killed approximately 250 million animals in this year alone, using methods like burying them alive or even burning them.

To guarantee sufficient supply for the country’s pork demand while ensuring the the citizens’ safety by not selling contaminated meat, China began taking steps to export their industrial farms, leading them to Argentina.

Currently, thanks to Solá’s 1996 reform, Argentina produces the majority of soy exported to China to feed livestock. Now, if the agreement goes through, it would also be producing the animals themselves.

Although this may seem like an opportunity for economic gain and strengthening relations with China, there are multiple problems which, if not handled properly, could have a tremendous effect on Argentina as a whole.

The first obvious problem is that of the production of soy, which would have to grow exponentially in order to provide for the growing number of livestock. Many experts say that the growing use of toxic chemicals in the field can be attributed to the soybean industry.

Since 2016, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has listed Argentina as one of the top ten countries with the highest rates of deforestation, calculating a loss of over 7.5 million hectares since 1990, with commercial agriculture accounting for over 60% of that loss.

Moving on, the country also imports, produces, and uses large quantities of fertilizers in agricultural fields, numbers that would inevitably multiply with the new deal with China. Fertilizers threaten biodiversity and also soil fertility in the area they’re employed.

In terms of industrial farms, Argentina has been advancing its production of livestock in the past decades, leading agriculture to become one of the bases of its economy and accounting for 7% of all employment. Although it’s relative value to the GDP lowered in the 1960s, agricultural goods now earn over half of Argentina’s foreign exchange, with 10-15% of Argentine farmland being foreign owned.

What’s inside these industrial farms, specifically those that produce pigs, is not as promising. Journalist Soledad Barruti has conducted thorough investigations into the entire industry in order to understand the reality these animals live in.

According to her reports, these pigs are born, and immediately they have their tusks removed without anesthesia, and their tails cut off. This is done because due to the stress levels these pigs experience, they have in the past resorted to eating each other. Instead of making conditions more bearable, the industry physically alters the animals at birth.

These conditions inevitably lower the animals’ immunity and expose them to more sicknesses. Aside from soy, the pigs chronically consume heaping amounts of antiviral antibiotics, making bacteria’s more resistant.

Barruti also highlights the role that this consumption of antibiotics plays in our society. Bacterias that resist antibiotics are predicted to become even more dangerous than diseases like cancer, and they originate in industrial farms. Zoonoses (diseases that can be transmitted to humans from animals) are becoming increasingly dangerous, with COVID-19 having a zoonotic source.

“We do not have time to continue delivering ourselves to an agribusiness that is absolutely suicidal. It is outrageous to think that we will keep deepening these scenarios of extreme cruelty, extreme abuse of nature, animal abuse, and abuse of the people who have no other option but to work in these hellish farms.”

Soledad Barruti

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