Filed under chinese-agriculture.

The Sow Barn's Missing Hands

China's agricultural labour force has halved since 1991, with three-quarters of what remains now over fifty. Muyuan Foods runs 583 commercial hogs per employee — a ratio only possible because sensor grids and vision models have replaced the stockmen demographic gravity removed. The cost improvement is real and auditable; immunity from the pork price cycle is not, and the Solow productivity paradox looks the same from inside a sow barn.