The prototype for the complex was based on Thailand’s “Nong Wah” model.
For the past decade, one peculiar story has made the rounds, detailing something out of a futuristic, dystopian movie: a high-tech, fully automated egg city in China. It’s a place that poultry farmers dream of. It is said to contain about three million hens in one facility. Though a road trip across the Midwest of America would reveal similar facilities, the China “egg city” stands out among the masses, as it is almost entirely automated.
Known as the CP Pinggu Egg Complex, this facility is considered one of the most advanced chicken farms in the world. Located in the suburbs of Beijing, this unassuming building is the future of animal agriculture. Besides some press releases and old, cached articles, there isn’t much information on this facility. That’s why A-Z Animals is taking a closer look at this mighty, mysterious egg-producing machine.
In the Beijing suburban district of Pinggu sits the CP Pinggu Egg Complex. As of 2017, this place features 18 massive barns containing around 168,000 hens each. There are plenty of similar facilities in places like Nebraska, but none are as futuristic as the one in China. That’s because each of these barns is almost entirely automated.
Each barn features an intelligent robot that makes rounds, monitoring temperature and humidity, and inspecting the condition of the poultry. When a problem arises, the intelligent robot alerts the barn manager, who is the only human present. Beyond that, everything else is largely automated. Both egg classification equipment and liquid egg processing equipment are also automated.
If a given egg makes it through the packaging process without a hitch, it is picked up by a large delivery truck waiting outside the facility to transport it to supermarkets across China. Each of these eggs is stamped with “CP,” the required branding for Charoen Pokphand Group, the farm’s primary investor.
It’s hard to fathom just how large and expansive this futuristic egg-laying facility really is. For one, it contains at least 3 million egg-laying hens and another million pullets (young hens). These millions of chickens are split into groups of roughly 168,000 birds for each barn. Each barn contains several robot guardians and one human ‘housekeeper.’ The facility has been reported to cover up to 135 hectares, though recent sources describe some large Chinese egg facilities as being smaller. For a bit of comparison, that means the CP Pinggu Egg Complex might be as big as about four Disneylands put together. In other words, the egg labyrinth is the size of approximately 189 professional soccer fields laid end-to-end.
The facility is designed to produce over 3 million eggs every single day. That amounts to between 800 million and 900 million and up to a billion eggs each year. Thanks to advanced techniques, each hen in the system produces roughly 300 eggs per year, far more than the average hen. This is because the extensive robotic system monitors humidity, temperature, and bird health for 12 hours each day. As soon as a sick bird is detected, it is removed before it can affect the rest of the flock.
As you can probably guess, all this egg laying and chicken living produces an eye-watering amount of manure. In fact, the facility produces between 30,000 and 40,000 tons of organic fertilizer each year. However, the designers of the CP Pinggu Egg Complex prioritized efficiency: all that fertilizer is immediately transported to a 135-hectare peach orchard.
This massive, complex egg production facility originates from a unique public-private partnership among the Chinese government, the China Development Bank, farmers, and the Charoen Pokphand Group. The government provided the land and infrastructure, while the bank supplied most of the initial capital, totaling over $80 million. The government provided the land and infrastructure, while the bank supplied most of the initial capital. The Charoen Pokphand Group, known as Chia Tai in China, manages the entire operation and provides technology, chicken genetics, and access to its global supply chain.
The impetus for this impressive agricultural project came from three sources. First, traditional backyard farming in China is highly vulnerable to Avian Flu, necessitating a safer, more sterile, and automated method of egg production. Second, the facility aligned with China’s 12th Five-Year Plan by benefiting farmers while simultaneously industrializing a key agricultural sector. Additionally, the CP Group was the first foreign investor in China in 1979. This made the company a natural choice for managing a project of such sensitivity and scale.
Interestingly, the prototype for the Pinggu complex was based on Thailand’s “Nong Wah” model. This model, originally a self-sustaining pig farming community, was scaled up and adapted for China. The Thai billionaire chairman of the CP Group, Dhanin Chearavanont, led the project. Ultimately, the Pinggu Egg Production Complex offers a successful and remarkable glimpse into the future of agriculture.
