Pig Farms:
The edge of the city. This picture was taken from a wide nicely tiled, treed and shrub'ed sidewalk which boarders a modern bustling 8 lane road, 4 for cars in the middle bordered by 2 10 foot wide median strips decorated with trees and shrubs. On the side of each of the decorated median strips are 2 lane roads for bicycles or vehicles for local stops. The 4 star Furong Hotel is about 200 feet down the street on the city side. The university is just up the street to the left of the picture. The university is bordered on two sides by farms like these shown. This is a rice growing region but some farms closer to the city have been directed to grow vegetables for the city. The hole which opens the view to the farms through the shrubs was made by the farmers coming and going, otherwise you would not know the farms were there. Most of the students at the school do not know the are farms next to the university.
The farmers lots in China are small and measured in mu (pronounced moo with the 3rd tone - high going low back to high). One mu is 0.165 acre. Each farmers gets a mu, one for his wife and one of a child. Farmers can have two children in some places but mostly limited to one child. There are usually a few relatives living at a farmer's home so the average farm is 5 to 9 mu. The average farm is .85 to 1.48 acres. That is not much so has to be very efficient requiring lots of work.
The farmers close to the school sold the rights to or gave up their land so most of the farms here are very small .2 to .5 mu.
Some of the area here has been used for fish farms. The fish require food so......next photo.
This is a fish pool. There are many small pools close to the university. There is a group of 4 pools here. The buildings on the far side are a pig farm. They are built pool walls so long and thin. The pool tops are paths to other fields so you walk by the buildings to get around the farms. The buildings on the left and right are shelters for cement pens where the pigs live. A couple of the buildings are where the keepers live. The keepers are farmers who tend the pigs because its a better living than working a farm. Less work and more pay.
The fish require food and the pigs provide it. The fish eat pig waste which is lumpy. The fish also eat flowers something like water hyacinth which almost chokes some of these pools but eventually eaten off each year.
Lunch:
The pigs must eat something and this is how their food gets to the pen. People ride around the city on bicycle carts and collect restaurant waste in the barrels. They peddle it to the pig farm and sell it to the pig farmers. The person buys the waste from the restaurants as it's in high demand. The Chinese love to eat pig, especially the fat and flavor of the oil. It's a great cycle, waste to pigs, then the fish, the fish to the restaurant market.
The waste is cooked to perfection and served to the pigs. The red machine is a grinder probably to grind bones. The pig farms do not smell. The food here smelled good so the pigs are not only eating cleaned, sterilized food but with fine seasoning from the restaurants.
Happy campers. Their job is to eat and they are very dedicated to their work. These are very close to harvesting. They will go by truck to the restaurants but out in the villages they get strapped over two board attached to the back of a motoche and driven to market.
