|
BEIJING - CHINA'S worries about soaring pork prices have reached new heights in a southwestern town where a man has been raising three squealing pigs in his apartment, local media reported.
Su Yanshan, a livestock slaughterer, has been keeping the none-too-fragrant animals on the enclosed balcony of his second-floor home in Dazu County since June, according to the Chongqing Evening News.
Su's wife told the newspaper they planned to sell the 100-kg pigs for the Lunar New Year holiday in early February, when pork is in peak demand for dumplings, sausage and other traditional dishes.
Other residents were not happy about their new neighbours, who were guarded by a barking Alsation dog.
'Day and night the pigs constantly squeal,' an upstairs neighbour told the paper in a report reprinted by Xinhua news agency on Thursday.
'Sometimes the steam from the pig manure floats out the window. It's been driving me stark raving mad.'
Another neighbour said she doused her clothes with perfume whenever she stepped out the door.
'It's not vanity. It's to take the stench of pig manure from my clothes,' she said.
Food prices have shot up across China since last year.
Retail prices of pork averaged 13.69 yuan ($2.68) per 500 g in major cities in December, jumping 6.4 per cent from November.
The government has frozen prices and pushed measures to increase the supply of pork, including subsidies for farmers.
'Judging from meat prices and market conditions, pork prices will still rise,' said Su's wife, unnamed in the story.
But the pig pen's days appeared to be numbered when the reporter told local officials.
They fined Su and told him to move the animals within three days. -- REUTERS
| 
