But it isn't tender feelings for swine that caused Wang Bin, a retired export company worker, to start replacing pork with vegetables, chicken and fish as the mainstays of her family's diet. More conventionally, pork is used in many of the most famous dishes in Chinese cuisine moo shu pork, twice cooked pork, sweet and sour pork, steamed pork buns, even home-style tofu, which often has as much pork as bean curd. Like hundreds of millions of other Chinese, she's simply feeling the pinch of...

Montana Highway 200 was blocked off for part of the day, and residents within a 1,500-foot radius were evacuated until the danger of explosions passed. ButteLocal Development corp. will use $25,000 to assist a small processing facility to expand into hog processing, saving 11 jobs and creating 24. The Lincoln Volunteer Fire Department and other responding agencies were unable to immediately douse the fire because of explosive materials including paint, solvent, oil and fuel inside the...

Georgia is at risk of losing most of its pig population to African swine fever and the devastating disease could also threaten pigs in neighbouring countries, the UN food agency warned Tuesday. Without "rapid and appropriate control measures", the FAO said there was "a real risk that Georgia may lose most of its pig population to African swine fever", estimated at about half a million pigs. It also warned that the significant wild boar population would complicate the control campaign and...

The Georgian Agriculture Ministry says that measures taken by the authorities -- including isolating, disinfecting, and when necessary, killing pigs -- have successfully contained the outbreak. There is no vaccine for African swine fever, which is often fatal among pigs but does not affect humans. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization said on June 8 that the outbreak could have potentially catastrophic economic consequences, and asked neighboring Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia to be on...

Department of Agriculture's national hog report weighted average price Friday afternoon was shown at $72. In other news this week, the USDA reported pork export sales for April down from a year ago for a third consecutive month, which put the year-to-date figure slightly below a year ago as well. Market analysts and meat distributors said buying interest from retailers for Independence Day holiday promotions and fill-in orders for the second half of June contributed to the strength in...