PIGS IN HELL

This is extracted from an article on : http://www.sustainabletable.org/
I don't know if we have pork from China here yet but I only ever buy pork from Barossa Foods, in the central market, as it is truly free range. As is Berkley Gold pork (a breed farmed elsewhere in the Barossa) but it is difficult to get.

Today, Saskatoon's StarPhoenix opines that pork and other meat should be drug-free, in response to China's announcement that it is raising special organic pork for the athletes who will compete in next year's Olympic Games in Beijing, because--get this--steroid levels in industrially-produced pork are high enough to cause Olympians to fail their drug tests.

In other pork news, Reuters reported early last week that shares in Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer (and the subject of this creepy Rolling Stone article from last December), fell as its giant deal with China has been less fruitful than anticipated, a result of falling pork prices stateside and a recent increase in pork production in China, the country that leads the world in pork consumption.
Last month, Smithfield had stock analysts drooling with reports of a loss to the tune of 20% of Chinese hogs to blue ear virus, which has killed tens of thousands of animals. Of course, the deal stipulated that the Smithfield pork would have to be free of ractopamine, a growth agent outlawed in many countries, which spurred the Chinese rejection of American and Canadian pork earlier this month.
According to the International Herald-Tribune, China dipped into its pork reserves last week in an effort to re-stabilize prices, which could be why the country isn't buying as much as anticipated from Smithfield, except that analysts point out that the 30,000 tons of pork being released amount to a "drop in the bucket," considering that China consumes between 130,000 and 150,000 tons of pork a day.