Mechanized Slaughterhouses in US

choi

David Kesmodel, Julie Jargon and Laurie Burkitt, Making a Modern Pig Farm in China. Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2013.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 17580703001580.html

Quote:

"The meat business in the US has been refined over decades into a system of mass production similar to making cars or televisions. Last year, 62% of the hogs in the U.S. were raised on farms with at least 5,000 head, according to the US Department of Agriculture. They're often housed in vast, climate-controlled buildings, fed specialized diets of corn and soybean meal, and processed into bacon and ham by big companies like Smithfield in highly mechanized factories designed to ensure the meat is free of disease and contamination.

"And meat processing is equally fragmented [in China]: China had some 14,720 pig slaughterhouses by the end of 2012, compared with about 600 in the US.

"the US meat-processing industry is generally seen as a global leader in food safety as well as being highly efficient.

"When a pig is sick [in US], most farmers quarantine it in a 'treatment pen,' where antibiotics are given only when necessary.

My comment:
(a) Please view the table first, which says, among other things, that in US: "PORK PROCESSING  Processors use automated technology to produce mass quantities of products, limiting human involvement."
(b) I am interested in only US, not China.
(c) There are latest inventions, such as robotic deboning of lamb or pig ham. But I am unsure whether robotics is widely practiced.
(d) A video:

Jinku Lin, Couples Fully Automated Mechanical Slaughterhouse. YouTube.com (from Youku of China), published on Dec 29, 2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoAJdvFOaQs
(e) Please be aware that there is a difference between a slaughterhouse and a meatpacker. See

2 Slaughterhouses  
http://www.fao.org/WAIRDOCS/LEAD/X6114E/x6114e04.htm
("Many large scale plants [slaughterhouse] ship whole graded carcasses to retail markets, others perform some on-site processing to produce retail cuts")

, in Verheijen LAHM et al, Livestock and the Environment Fiding a Balance. International Agriculture Centee, Wageningen, The Netherlands, January 1996
(on behalf of Food and Agriculture Organization).
http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/pr ... /Refer/IACwaste.PDF