Rudong county in Nantong, Jiangsu province, a major national player in pig farming, has been actively promoting standardized and eco-friendly practices in recent years.

To date, the county has established one standardized demonstration farm and 63 provincial-level ecological and healthy livestock breeding demonstration farms.

One standout example is the Xuri pig farm in Yangkou town. The farm has achieved near-complete automation, with a current livestock population of 3,152 pigs managed by just eight staff members.

According to Xi Bing, the head of the farm, "the fully automated feeding system eliminates the need for manual feeding. Processes such as farrowing, mating, waste handling, and water supply in the birthing rooms are all automated, requiring no manual intervention."

In addition to its high level of automation, the farm has implemented a green recycling system, employing an ecological recycling method to turn livestock waste into a valuable resource.

Similarly, the Aiduo livestock farm in Bencha town makes optimal use of livestock waste. Equipped with a 20,000-cubic-meter plastic film biogas fermentation tank and a 3.5-kilometer network of liquid manure transport pipes, the farm provides high-quality water and fertilizer for 3,200 mu (213.33 hectares) of vegetables.

Yang Guizhong, the head of the farm, said that all the farm's manure is sent through pipes to the manure tank. After going through the dry and wet separator, the dry manure is placed in the yard for fermentation to produce biogas. "We can process about 300 cubic meters of manure per day, generating 600,000 kilowatt hour of electricity annually," Yang said.

A monitor system is utilized in a pig farm in Rudong. [Photo/ntjoy.com]