Piggies in the middle of animal welfare efforts

China's pork industry is at the center of moves to raise awareness of ethical standards of farm production. Yang Wanli reports.

Yao Dehui started a pig farm in the southern province of Guangdong in 1998, but it wasn't until he visited a number of modern counterparts in Europe and the United States in 2005 that he began to understand how the use of technology could make his business more profitable.

Unlike most pig farms in China, which are dominated by the stench of excrement, the Western farms used automated services to clean, feed and even transport the animals. In addition to the modern facilities, Yao was deeply impressed with the foreign farmers' ideas about raising livestock, especially the focus on the mental health of the animals.